Why I told my most supportive fan to delete her Facebook comment.
Confession: my mom is my best friend on Facebook. I’m fine with that. She’s embraced the social network, friended me and leveraged the channel to show, among other things, her relentless and unyielding motherly support.
Whether I’m tagged in a photo, linking to a new blog post or telling a joke, mom is there in a heart beat to Like it, share it and comment on it.
Is it lame that my mom is usually the only person that comments on my content? Yeah, I guess it is. Whatever. There are worse problems in the world than having a mom who’s “too” supportive.
But as much as I appreciate her good intentions, sometimes a comment from mom can cross the line. And on April Fools’ day (of all days) I had to ask her to take one down.
I manage my company’s Facebook page and one of my jobs is to find ways to make what we do fun and engaging. Now, keep in mind that I work at a utility and the word “fun” isn’t always associated with things like price plans and power plants. As you can imagine I try to take advantage of every opportunity to show the lighter side, without getting in trouble.
So when April 1 came around this year, I saw it as one of those chances to have some harmless fun at work. I came up with an idea that poked fun at ourselves a bit while promoting one of our programs.
Given the sensitive nature of the utility industry, the prank was a tad risky, but it felt right. And with the help of a few talented people, and a boss with a sense of humor, I posted this fake news story as a note on our Facebook page.
After it was up, I monitored the comments like a hawk, anxious to see how people would react. The first comment came a mere two minutes after I clicked the “publish” button. It was brimming with praise and included a phrase like, “This made my day!” Guess who it was from.
Momma!
Do you see any problems with this? I did.
I grabbed my phone and pounded out a text message asking her to take it down. The adrenaline was rushing. Thirty seconds later I snatched up my phone again and called her to make sure she’d gotten the message.
She answered the phone, “It’s down.” I could hear the worry in her voice and felt bad for asking her to remove it. I know she had good intentions. I was actually happy that she liked it so much.
Then why would I ask her to remove the comment?
In a word: transparency. I’ll explain.
Facebook comments are a huge component of my profession. They’re one of the variables used to determine whether I’m doing a good job or not.
So when I posted something that would be viewed, shared and criticized by the people I work with, I didn’t want the first (intensely positive and supportive) comment to come from my mom. I saw a conflict of interest there, because of course a mom is going to like and speak positively about the work her son has done.
Thankfully, my mom keeps a pretty level head. She understood that I didn’t react like that out of embarrassment and wasn’t telling her that I don’t appreciate her support. I was trying to maintain the credibility and transparency of the conversation that I was being paid to facilitate.
(I explained later that the more appropriate course of action would have been to share the note with her friends on Facebook, since most of her friends know that I’m her son. That way, she can set the appropriate context.)
Should I have left her comment alone? Do you think I overreacted?
Maybe you think that odds are, nobody would have found out that it she was my mom. And after all, it was a harmless April Fools’ day prank.
But on social media, transparency is vital. And there’s no way I’d be able to pass the red-face test when reporting on the success of the April Fools’ day note, when its most prominent supporter was the writer’s mom.
Nobody likes being asked to remove comments. Understandably so. Commenting is your voice. And the beauty of social media is that it gives your voice more volume and an audience. All of a sudden you’re a restaurant critic, a mystery shopper, a news producer…and people are listening.
But “with great power comes great responsibility.” And it’s up to us to make sure that when the lines get blurry on social media, we act transparently and comment appropriately.
Thanks, Mom, for your support and understanding.
Three more April Fools’ day pranks from 2011 that I loved:
Mommatorials are intended to help my mom (and others like her) understand something, usually social-media or tech related. Read my first Mommatorial: 5 Twitter Fears, Conquered