CEOs Go Rogue: Managing Social Media Slip-Ups | E81 with Amber Rhodes

Why do CEOs sometimes go rogue on social media—and what does it mean for your brand? 🤔 In this episode, we’re joined by Amber to dig deep into the wild world of executive online antics. From LinkedIn mishaps to rogue posts that cross the line, we unpack how CEOs’ off-the-cuff behavior can affect everything from corporate culture to talent attraction.

We get into: 

✅ The high-stakes world of CEOs building personal brands—and sometimes stepping way over the line
 ✅ How misguided attempts at “juicy” engagement can backfire and why a little media training goes a long way
 ✅ Real-life examples of rogue posts that made waves (yes, including the infamous “boob post”)
 ✅ The power of a solid social media policy and crisis plan in keeping your brand safe
 ✅ Insider gossip and survival tips from marketers who've navigated the fallout

If you’ve ever wondered how to manage the fallout when a CEO’s online behavior starts causing havoc—or if you just love a good marketing scandal—this episode is for you.

Transcript

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We are talking about CEOs going rogue. Only our favorite subject, I'm going to talk about her boobs are like blah, this, but sometimes I don't think they think what they've posted is out or they're just actually dickheads? They get off on like this feeling of power and villainry in some ways. there's this philosophy in sexy startup land that you move fast and break things. And now it's, easier than ever to break trust Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Blame It On Marketing. We are talking about CEOs going rogue. Only our favorite subject, only the only reason we're here. No, kidding, we like to talk about marketing, but it is a thing that happens to marketers a lot, right? That's one of the areas of criticism in our lives, our CEO, so. We are really, really happy to be joined by Amber, who has made this a whole newsletter and type of content out of it. But I'll let you introduce yourself, Amber. I am Amber and I am just like so obsessed with juicy, juicy gossip. And there's seemed to be last year so much of it going around on LinkedIn, just in a lot of founders, just kind of like getting in on it for engagement or for, I don't know, whatever reason. And at one point, I can't remember what post it was, but I was like, why are these guys acting like this? And they are usually guys. I'm gonna write in this letter about it because I wrote this. those links to posts and stuff make the rounds in DMs. And I was like, why aren't we just talking about it? Because it's fun. It's fun. And on a more serious note, I feel like people deserve to know the thoughts of these leaders, especially if they're looking for jobs. It's so easy to overlook stuff like that. So I started a newsletter called Founders Behaving Badly, working on a on a podcast right now, TBD. So we'll see. Yeah, and it's just like one of my fun passion projects, again, because of the juicy gossip side of things. Who ever thought that we will love some corporate gossip, you know? I know. I'm not surprised because, you know, back in the day, we would have seen all this stuff on Twitter or at least they might have been hid behind another profile, but then we, like, someone would have done some real deep digging and found out who it was, you know? And so I think this stuff has, I think this stuff has been going on long time, but I'm really glad that we are in the era of calling it out. I'm here for it. I'm with you Amber. Every time I get your newsletter, I'm like, it's like, Yeah. juicy, juicy gossip laying in bed before, before I fall asleep. Who did what? I just love it. sorry, my guinea pigs have decided to go completely feral. Can you hear them? They love the goss. They love the juicy goss. So before, but before we get into all of this, the thing that we love to do, Amber, is to ask everybody who joins the podcast about their deepest, darkest marketing confession. up. Okay, I saw this question and I was like, I don't know. I feel like I'm kind of a baby marketer and I'm not going to say that I have great attention to detail, but I usually make like small mistakes, not big, huge mistakes. But I do know that like last year or maybe the year before I accidentally posted something for a client on my employer's LinkedIn page and was able to delete it within a few minutes, but I was like, no, like they're not supposed, this is not supposed to happen. So I know that's kind of like a mild story, but that's my. funny. But you felt the panic as you went back to Narnia. You felt the like, my God, I need to get this down. We recorded a whole mini podcast episode this morning and it turns out that we were live streaming it to LinkedIn the whole time. And thank God me and Emma didn't sidebar go off on something because we do sometimes in our private chats, because that wouldn't have been great. It's just the whole, I think the beginning 10 minutes is us talking about bleaching our hair and then we get into the topic. Sure. Yeah, of course. Yeah, because sometimes like we have a little rant before before a session starts. So yeah, I'm just really glad that we had a calm one today. I could yeah, that's horrible. So let's dig into the topic. Why should we be discussing I think that the answer to that varies. One of my reasons is that I feel like from a workers rights and awareness point of view, you should understand how CEOs approach certain topics, whether it's like if they're kind of shitty to their competitors or if they're saying really things that don't agree with your values. I think that that should be open and out there. So that's one reason. And then another is like from a marketing point of view, you just kind of have to like understand the public stance that CEOs are taking so that you can be prepared when they say something that people don't like. I think CEOs are more out there than ever right now. You know, they're on multiple channels. They're building their personal brands. And I think that personal brand side of things can... can. really leak into like their person. just like, you don't have to say that, you know. It's like when they don't go rogue and they are actually building a decent, like, personal brand, we see the uplift in that business's revenue. Like there is a direct line. We know that when CEOs are active on social and they're doing good stuff, it's really good for business. It's really good for everybody. So yeah, the counter of that is what we're talking about, which is like when they go crazy, start posting. I mean, sometimes it's, I think... think, I mean, obviously we're gonna get into this, but sometimes I don't think they think what they've posted is out there. don't know if you guys feel like that or whether you feel like some of these people, I mean, I guess it's a case by case basis, but do you feel like it's more that they're trying to stir attention and grab an audience and they're struggling to do it. So they post something a bit rogue or is it kind of like they're just actually dickheads? the kids? I think. both. That really like, that made my brain short circuit. I think it's a little bit of both because we are in this like hook culture where you have to have that snappy hook. The first like second is the most important to grab attention. And then some of it, I just wonder if they like, they don't have the filters, like they haven't been trained or they don't. don't? They don't even think about it because they don't have marketing brain or PR brain. Like they don't have those mental filters to be like, maybe I shouldn't say this because it will piss off a customer or investor or prospect. Yeah. Yeah. And I think as well, when you, maybe when you get into the habit of posting and you kind of start posting more and more and kind of start mentally slightly pushing your content, sometimes you can, because of your like local max kind of go over the line and then you're going to have to pull back. it's interesting how, how these CEOs react to going too far because some of them just literally can't give a fuck. And some of them, you know, we'll delete the posts. post apologies and all of that stuff. But yeah, it's interesting as well. When I look at your newsletter, it's almost like a backlog of things that have happened because a lot of the time they don't exist anymore. You can't find it except for when people have screen-shotted it and spoken about it. So yeah, think it's interesting in the reaction and yeah, I agree. It's both, isn't it? Mm. No, I've been thinking, you should know where the line is. And I've been thinking lately too about like, probably more people are developing parasocial relationships with CEOs than ever before. And I think that in some way that like feeds the ego, like everyone has an ego and CEOs, I feel like you just kind of have to, and it's not necessarily a bad thing, but they're suddenly getting like all this positive feedback, whereas just like, you get high from getting that attention. Couldn't agree more. So what are guys favorite examples of CEOs favorite, also like, my God, why did you do this? Examples of CEOs going rogue. What's your number? What's your favorite so far Amber? I think the boob one is pretty good. Like we could go ahead and talk about that one because it's so top of mind. I don't remember his name, James, something. Doesn't matter. The boob LinkedIn post guy, this guy posted something that was just like, ideas are like boobs. And then it had a whole long. reasoning for why they're, and it's just a picture of a woman. I think an actress. Yeah, yeah. Okay, and he got a lot of attention from it, and he's a co-founder of... a yet to be launched startup or something because I went to the website and it was just like coming soon. Yeah, and that was just like that was a new one. I've never seen anything quite like that before. I have, I have and because I don't want to get sued, I'm terrified of that. Like I'm in America and they'll sue you for anything. So I've gotten a few, I got one where they, where they kind of vented about a past CEO that they had and then, went back and edited it and messaged me and was like, I like you can't post that. And I was like, Okay, that's fine. I'm not gonna do it. Like, but I do get some juicy gossip. And I have some in my brain from like a few years ago, that I just don't want to rehash. But I know, I know it happens, you know. the boob guy, what's everyone's theory? Do you think that was a tactical post or do you think he just... not a freaking clue? I went on his profile, he doesn't post much. So. I think this was his effort at starting to do LinkedIn stuff and it just went too far. I think, cause he's not like a marketing person. I don't, I didn't think he was at least when I looked, correct me if I'm wrong. So it feels like a, I'm going to do an energy post. I'm going to talk about her boobs are like blah, And just no, no. Yeah, I will say there was kind of a similar post. Do y'all know who Adam Robinson is? We wish we didn't, but yeah. I don't. I'm Googling. the RB2B guy, yeah, yeah. This is so weird. I don't know people by their names. I know about what companies they work in. And that's what I associate with, which is crazy, right? Because it's like, well, I guess I'm gonna judge RB2B for their shitty social posts because it's of their CEO or whatever. So it does matter. it does matter. And he, I might go back and forth on him because I've seen him talk live and it was really good. And he seemed like very level headed. And I think, so he had a post a few months ago and it was like, he met someone on a rooftop, like founders meet and this very attractive woman, like, and he kept mentioning her attractiveness. And people were like, why did you do that? And then in the comments, he, see all of it admitted it was like, we thought we would do it for engagement to see it where people fit. And I was like, okay, at you admit it, but that's still, I don't like that. I don't like that tactic. And I wish that people wouldn't stoop to that. feel like it takes away from the message. I don't understand it, I guess. Especially on a platform like LinkedIn where, you know, as much as there is a lot going on. and, you know, Ruta and I don't always behave the most professional on LinkedIn, but there is still a line that I wouldn't cross. And that would basically, basically I think the line is being mean about someone specifically, like as in specifically going to attack someone, unless they attacked me first, in which case you're fair game. But also yeah, objectifying people is just a no-no. Like objectifying someone, you know, whether that's like, yeah, sexually or whatever, that's, that's surely, surely everyone knows that's not right. Like we work in, you work in companies where there are HR departments. Don't you know? Yeah, it's, I don't know, I just like, I think that women too are better at clocking it than men are. And again, I think some of it is coming down to that like mental filter. But a lot of women already feel unsafe in their work environments, especially I guess in startups typically are more male dominated. And I can think you'd want to do better so that you could have the best talent if you were interested in you. I don't think that people think that far. will happen is they'll interview someone who maybe is like very... I don't know what the word is. Not sensitive, that's the wrong word. Just cautious of what they say to make sure that they don't feel that like they make people excluded or like uncomfortable, whatever. And then whoever's interviewing them will be like, yeah, just not the right cultural fit. You know, not going to get the banter in the office and like the bro jokes. It's like, no, no, you're just dicks. Thanks. Bye. Hmm. Yeah, like, I don't want part of your banter if that's what your banter includes. yeah, like you need to go back to joke school because it's not funny. Go back to clown school. and there is a bit of a, especially in startup B2B tech land, which we are from, like there is a bit of a bro, there is a bro culture, because it is very white, middle-class, nepotism friendly. And so it does hold anyone who is. different to that on the outside. And I do think that's where a lot of this comes from, where it's like those people are probably working in a vacuum with people who are like, yeah, yeah, that's funny. think that's funny. think they're not getting any kind of outside of people because they're just listening to the like, yeah. of like bros around them who think that posting stuff that's, I think, yeah. I mean, most of the time it's quite grotty. So what about when employees kind of fight back? Ruta and I've got our own example to share with you, Amber, which we think you're going to love. But obviously one of the big ones in the UK was the BrewDog scandal that came out quite a few years ago. The BrewDog guy is still relentlessly acting like a dick. dick. I think we've mentioned him being a dick. the conception of this podcast as well. So he's been cooking. and there's obviously that open letter online where the staff are basically like, this guy's awful and the way the company culture is run is awful. And I can't imagine it's actually any better. what do you think about when employees kind of do that sort of thing, Amber, and they push back? I think it's awesome. Okay. picture of him that is kind of going around LinkedIn at the moment where he looks like the guy in, yeah, Bane from Batman, where he's got like oxygen mask tubes on a Zoom call. Like that's how he took the company Zoom. He looks and it's going around because people are like, I think this is brilliant. But when you look at the people also in the LinkedIn post, in the Zoom, it, what are you doing? It's fricking weird. Sometimes I'm like, do they lean into like, they want to be Lex Luthor or they want to be super villains because they like Mark Zuckerberg and his MMA fighting and his like chains and new style and then Jeff Bezos just like getting totally jacked. Like I don't get it. I think that they do. They get off on like this feeling of power and villainry in some ways. I think that as an American, I might have a pretty different point of view about how employees can fight back because I think in a lot of ways we feel very strapped, like not able to do this because our health insurance is attached to employment a lot of times. We can be fired at will just so they could just be like, you're gone without cause, stuff like that. So I think a lot of it does happen in the back channels where people are talking about it in DMs or like woman to woman, you have a conversation and you're like, what happened? Why did you leave? And then they tell you. Yeah. Yeah. and I think that that happens more often than not. And it might end up on Glassdoor, it might end up on reviews. Some people might be brave enough to talk about it publicly, but I do think that it tends to be, least for smaller startups, just the whisper network side of things. it is. And I definitely think also it's a thing having been through this myself, having worked for like a, it was actually a woman, a monster of a boss. I was just really relieved that I got out of there alive. Like honestly, it just, the feeling of being, the relief of not having to work with that person anymore who has that like real, like insane personality that you, and you never know what you're kind of coming into at work. work. Yeah, you just feel like, I'm just grateful I don't work for that person anymore. And yeah, your survival mechanisms are basically like ranting to your friends over a beer outside of work. And especially when you're more junior, you do feel like you can't leave as well. Like there's a bit of, I always think it's a bit like Stockholm's and Stockholm syndrome. Like when you've got a boss like that. like, can't, I can't, what if I leave? What's going to happen? What if I tell them I hate them? What's going to happen to me? to me? I'm not gonna understand. But yeah, in the UK it's definitely different. People are more protected. It's definitely easier to kind of be more public about these things. reviews on Glassdoor before. Yeah, well Ruthie, you can tell I'm touching the story. So, not gonna say who it is, because obviously, you know what, they are the kind of people that would sue you, so not gonna say who it is, but Emma and used work together and then we left and we were very clear in our Glassdoor reviews after we left, why we left in excruciating detail, explaining how, how they work and not even like how they work as like people, but like how they plan to run the function that they just bought is just not going to happen. and it was obvious that it was us because you know, who else is going to have that detail and that kind of, you know, conversation. and then they... I remember that they responded to the Glassdoor reviews and then their responses were just hilarious. I think I said something on the lines of like, we're in 2020, whatever the year was, and your tech still looks like it's from 1990. And then the person that responded is one of the HR people and they're like, oh, actually, we were founded in 1995. I was like, really, that's gonna be your response? Yeah, of all the things to say. And the people that were still there after, were like, did you guys like leave those reviews? we're like, yeah, like it's, there's. was weird about the whole situation is obviously some of these reviews were pointed at the CEO, which I think is, you know, because the CEO at the time was a complete dinosaur. It was very much like rule by I am the top of the hierarchy. I'm not really interested in what you minions think type attitude. And it was a, you know, a board of all white middle-aged men. again, that comes with a certain... I don't know what to say, comes with a certain flavour or not a very strong flavour, should I say. But yeah, they, that was kind of, that, what I thought was interesting is that I don't recall them ever really asking us about like, number one, why we wrote them, but also like dealing with some of the bigger issues of that. Like, why we thought we should publicly talk about it. And I think it goes back to what you were saying, Amber, which was that we were like, no, I don't want people to go and work for this company that has this sort of CEO and this kind of mentality. Like we want people to go and work at companies or know at least know if you're getting when you go and work for a company. And that, so like, it was kind of our moment of just, yeah, trying to help people, I guess, if you like. Blame it on marketing in our heads really, wasn't it? It's like, yeah. And we checked in on them today to this day, they have like a 2.5 out of five stars, like from thousands of reviews on Glassdoor. And it's like, it's, we weren't being salacious in any way. Like this is clearly a problem. Yeah, wow. So yeah, that's our fight back story. It was very satisfying, wasn't it? It was good to get it off your chest, but we'd also quit by then and things like the NHS exists. So please don't do this kind of thing if you are in any kind of compromised position, because it's not worth it as much as you might hate your boss. So the biggie, if you work for a company and your CEO has done something like this, where they have gone online and they have, I don't know, talked about someone's tits or turned up with a fricking Bane mask on on a Zoom call and then a posting about how great they are afterwards, how, as a marketer, is there any way that we can manage this kind of behavior? And I guess, yeah, where is the line where you would be like, shit, we're going to need to get like... What does everyone think? Yeah, this is something I've been thinking about and I've been lucky to not have to work with these organizations or with CEOs that do go rogue. Like always I've worked with people who are very level headed. I think that there's like a certain amount of protections that you can think about ahead of time, like having a social media policy, having some sort of review process, like making sure that the CEO has someone who checks over it and looks. it for like weirdness before they post something. Some media training, I think that media training has traditionally been thought for like talking to the press, right? know, social media is democratized. There needs to be media training for everyone. And I don't know if that comes from an internal or external source, but I do has to be something there. I don't know if HR should be involved with that, but. but I do think that it's necessary. So I'm in the very early stages of thinking this through, and I'm sure there's huge corporations that have thought us into the nth degree. I'm curious how they manage stuff like this. What do they do when Mark Zuckerberg goes off the walls? No clue. they, so I've, I, my first marketing tech job was, at a PR and comms platform. so one of the things that we used to do for our clients and in events is bring in this crisis PR agency and actually teach people how to create a crisis plan and how to deal with a crisis. And literally the example is your CEO has said something stupid online. That's like the example, even from God, this was like six years ago, I probably worked there. So like even then, so yeah, there are organizations that will sort this out for you. They're gonna be expensive as hell because you're gonna need them like right now. They're gonna have to drop everything and help you. But I think having a little bit of a crisis plan internally, even if it's just like, okay, one of us saw something that's not right on social, what do we do? Do we go into the account and delete it immediately? Do we like contact someone like what's the plan? Maybe like three levels of bad, know, from a spelling mistake to like someone saying something outrageous. And just have a little bit of a thought because you don't want to be dealing with it in the moment probably. And I know it sounds like it probably won't ever happen and there's no point, but literally it's a half an hour thinking and planning job. And then hopefully you'll never have to use it. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, I think my experience of this comes from primarily working in the NGO sector where a crisis can be anything from someone saying something stupid all the way through to someone's dropped a bomb on a country and my God, what are you going to do? And so like the severity of the, risk attached to what people do and say online is, you know, we're talking about is global politics, right? So we're talking about heavy shit. It's all anyone needs to know. so you, everyone has a risk register and everyone hates this work because it's kind of goes back to corporate governance and policies and processes. But then you know what to do when this stuff happens and you have like attached to it. a rating or a rag status or something that says like, if something happens online and it is that serious. it's in the red category and you know who to call, know, you know where the nuclear codes are, you know where the button is to press to get the help and I think... if you are suspicious that you may have a CEO that is in that category or even, you know, it could be anybody just people in your business actually now just posting actively online and you're concerned. think, yeah, just like Ruth said, like make sure you know who to go to like. how you're going to handle it. I think and make sure, it's kind of categorized like everything from like, are you going to delete the post? Are you going to, or are you going to comment back? Depending on the nature of the post, right? And people hate that stuff. I know everyone hates it, and especially in sexy startup land, nobody wants a fricking risk register and corporate governance, but it will save your ass. No, it's a spreadsheet with like 10 things on it. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. It's not that deep, you know? I like that. And I think, you know, there's this philosophy in startup land, sexy startup land that you move fast and break things. And now it's, I believe, easier than ever to break trust when you move really, really fast. It's like, market. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And having something like that, just the... a physical reminder of if someone doesn't have mental filters, then you're giving them. just, I don't know, PR filters or something to run things through to just make sure that you're not on a path that will break trust. Because I think of this, did you hear about the Borty app? You subscribed to the newsletter, so maybe you did. Or Borty AI, that's what it was. it was. They sent these AI generated emails in the voice of Donald Trump on inauguration day in the US. we're just like, we have a message for you from a very special person. And they never like mentioned his name or anything, yes, they, they generated the message based on the profile and for, and oftentimes like the profile picture. So. for the messages to women, would default to their appearance. And it would be like, that's a great red lipstick, very attention catching, stuff like that. And it just like a moment of thought, a line on a spreadsheet could have prevented that person who was like, my God, that's such a funny idea, we should do it. And then just hit go on the AI machine. It would have prevented them from doing that because they would have thought, maybe this is not the time. kind of the time. So, so speaking, so obviously we've spoken about CEOs going rogue, whether it's in private or on LinkedIn, but Emma pulled up a really great point that it might be just someone in your organization, like a new, a new person that you've recruited, right? And you didn't quite. realize their tendencies on social media. How can you set the right tone from the outset? Is there anything you'd be thinking about as the social media person at company being like, if new people join, this is probably what they should know Yeah, I think it should be pretty long warning. Like within your first two weeks. be talking to the social media manager, communications manager, whoever handles that. 15 minutes, like here's our social media policy. You know, we're not gonna babysit what you talk about, but you should know that this is like our approach. And these are the lines that we don't want you to cross as a representative of the company. And I think just like, like opening that dialogue sooner rather than later so that if they have a question, they come to you and don't just be like, I'm just going to risk it. I'm just going to ask for forgiveness and not for permission. Almost, think in most cases, those people would welcome you asking for permission as you get used to what those bumpers are. It's so crap because it's so counterintuitive for like me to hear that because I'm so the like ask for forgiveness not for permission. But also it's because I've had it instilled in me where the line is. So yeah, I guess for most people they do need to ask. I'm going to retract all my previous statements that you should now ask for permission. Only if you don't know what you're doing. If you think something is on the edge where you need to ask permission, you probably need to ask permission. know, like it's a good heuristic. I think this is actually a really good space for like custom GPTs as well. So you can make a custom GPT with your company social media policy and have it as a checker and just give everyone a link and be like, if you're unsure, just copy and paste and it will respond to you if it thinks it's okay. And it's something super simple. So I think if social media people aren't using that as a tool, it's a really easy and simple thing. And maybe some people are shy about asking and don't want to seem like they're idiots. So it will just prevent that from happening. Yeah, that's a great idea. I mean, we're going to ask you about marketing gossip, but I feel like this was the whole episode. have you got any, yeah, any other marketing gossip? It doesn't have to be social media based. It could be like, you know, new features and products that you've noticed that you love or don't love am getting very tired, and I think a lot of people are, of like not owning anything anymore. Like it's really pissing me off that you know, like you could buy like Photoshop and then you had it and now you have to pay for it month after month. I wonder if we're ever going to circle back and probably not, but if we would ever circle back to like, you get to buy a thing and then you get to keep it and then that's the differentiator. I mean, that's a really good question. This SaaS bubble has to end at some point, right? So like, in terms of like the monthly subscription model. but everyone, the problem is like, one of the things that I think is happening there is that no SaaS company really wants to say out loud that they're struggling because of the monthly subscription model and locking people into two-year, three-year contracts. Nobody wants to say that out loud, but it is the truth. Universally acknowledged that subscription models suck ass. They do though! It depends on the subscription because I bet there's loads of subscriptions that people have, even though they don't use all that much. And if they had to repurchase it as a chunk payment, they wouldn't. But because it's not that expensive, they'll just keep it on like the tabs. I think a lot of, you know, there's a good percentage of revenue that comes from that. So yeah, yeah. It's funny you say that Amber, because at the end of last year, I reviewed all of the tech that I pay for. Cause I'm a consultant, right? So I pay for all my stuff myself and I did cut some stuff out. But for the stuff that I really loved, it was right around the Black Friday period. So I literally signed up for the year for everything because everything was on like discount and I could basically get stuff half price, which isn't the same as owning something. But the fact that my my bank card isn't dinging every month with like 12 different subscriptions mentally feels a lot better than it would. And I know it's not the same thing. I'm so aware of that, but it feels a little bit better. And I don't get a good deal because I'm using it anyway, right? So. I'd like to own stuff. I wonder what that would be like. It's the eternal curse of being a millennial, isn't it? Don't own anything. You know. an avocado the other day. I don't mean to brag. Amber, thank you so much for joining us if you haven't signed up to Amber's newsletter and you want to Get the juicy juicy goss in the b2b world. We'll leave a link in the description down below Go say hello to Amber go visit blame and marketing comm, you know, just go do the good stuff That's it. Yeah. Thank you very much.