"Dear Rich,
Our CEO is obsessed with social media. He posts constantly and, while he is not the worst on LinkedIn, it is… not good.
The bigger problem is that my manager, the Head of Comms, has now asked me to take ownership of his content going forward.
To give you a flavour of what I am dealing with:
He has asked what awards we can “win him” to give his profile more credibility.
He has suggested running around Central Park filming selfie videos because “everyone loves that format.”
He thinks we can use AI to automate his written posts so he can focus on video.
He does not seem bothered that the only people engaging are employees.
I have my first proper one on one planning session with him in two weeks and I am already dreading it. How do I handle this without either destroying my integrity or just becoming a pair of hands executing nonsense that quietly kills me inside?"
Marie, New York
Rich’s reply
Marie, I completely understand where you are coming from, but let’s reframe this straight away.
First, your manager has played a blinder. They have managed to pull your CEO’s social presence into the comms function. Whether that was by design or luck does not matter. It creates a real opportunity to raise the bar.
Second, your CEO clearly believes that being visible on social matters. That is not a bad instinct. He may be confused about what good looks like, but that is exactly where you come in.
Third, he is willing to put himself out there. Even the running videos tell you something. He is not hiding. Many CEOs are deeply uncomfortable being public. Yours is not. That is an asset if it is guided well.
Fourth, your manager trusts you to work directly with the most senior person in the business on one of his passion projects and one of the company’s most visible channels. That is not admin. That is endorsement.
And finally, he does not yet understand what good metrics or real impact look like. Which means you get to define them.
Seen through that lens, this is not a nightmare. It is a high stakes opportunity to influence up.
Your job is not to tell him his ideas are bad. That will get you nowhere. Your job is to reframe what “working” on social actually means.
Right now, in his head, working probably equals:
Posting a lot
Looking busy
Getting likes
Feeling visible
You need to gently shift that to:
Reputation
Authority
Trust with the right audience
Signal over noise
And you do that by talking outcomes, not formats.
In your one on one, do not start with Central Park or video or AI. Start with purpose.
Ask him:
What do you want your presence to actually do for the business?
Customers
Investors
Recruits
Partners
Future board members
Then ask the more powerful follow up:
If one of those people looked at your feed for five minutes, what would you want them to think about you?
Serious operator
Clear thinker
Trusted leader
Someone worth betting on
Then ask:
What are the subjects you feel you genuinely know more about than almost anyone else in the industry?
Once he answers those, his current instincts will quietly start to look misaligned without you ever having to say they are wrong.
Awards chasing becomes:
What actually builds credibility with the people you care about?
Running selfies becomes:
What formats signal authority rather than attention seeking?
AI mass production becomes:
What is worth saying even if it is less often?
Employee likes becomes:
Are the right people paying attention, not just the nearest ones?
At that point, you can start to bring in the real value of comms:
Working with PR to get him in the right publications, on the right topics, saying something that actually moves his reputation forward.
Shaping his thinking into sharp points of view rather than content volume.
Editing ruthlessly so everything sounds like him at his best, not him on a bad day with a prompt.
Play this well and you will have regular one on one access to the most powerful person in the company. You will be helping shape how the market sees him and, by extension, how it sees the business.
So what could have been a soul destroying experience, could actually become career making.
Onwards!
