Luxury, Clout and the Client’s Privacy: When Social Media Becomes More Important Than Discretion

 

If you spend any amount of time on social media, your algorithm eventually becomes a fascinating reflection of the world you work in, the things you search for and, increasingly, the things platforms think you want to see.

Because of my business, my social-media feeds are filled with virtually every corner of the luxury world: jewellery, automobiles, private aviation, yachts, luxury real estate, resorts and everything in between. There is no shortage of people showcasing what they do, what they sell and, sometimes, the lifestyle that supposedly comes with being successful in the luxury sector.

And after watching this world online for long enough, you begin to notice something else.

There are legitimate professionals who have spent years building businesses, reputations and relationships with clients. There are also plenty of people who appear to be selling the idea of luxury almost as much as they are selling an actual luxury product or service.

Some are showcasing extraordinary properties because that is genuinely what they do. Others are sitting beside a swimming pool, on a yacht or at a five-star resort while attempting to convince their audience that they have discovered the secret to becoming wealthy themselves—and, conveniently, that secret is available for purchase through their latest course, mentorship program or online community.

There is nothing inherently wrong with marketing yourself. Social media is an extraordinarily powerful business tool.

But there is a line between promoting your business and turning your clients into content.

And increasingly, I am seeing that line being crossed.

One trend that has become particularly noticeable over the past couple of years involves people sitting somewhere spectacular—a yacht in the Mediterranean, a luxury resort, a beach club—and suddenly opening their laptop or taking a phone call from an apparently important client.

The camera is running.

The audience is watching.

And then comes the supposedly outrageous client request.

Perhaps the client is demanding something at the last minute. Perhaps they are complaining about something. Perhaps they are asking for an unusual service or making a request that the person filming clearly considers ridiculous.

The implication is obvious: Look at the outrageous people I have to deal with because I operate in the luxury world.

Sometimes these people are legitimate and well established in their industries. Perhaps they genuinely see the content as an opportunity to demonstrate what they do, even while travelling or away from the office.

But when the content starts exposing the behaviour, requests or private conversations of actual clients, I have to ask a very simple question:

Who is this really for?

Is it for the client?

Is it for business?

Or is it for the algorithm?

Because those are three very different things.

After 15-plus years in luxury, I know one thing: you don’t expose your clients.

I have spent more than 15 years working in luxury property rentals and sales in the French Riviera.

I can tell you categorically that if I publicly aired the last-minute problems a client experienced during a villa stay, or shared the unusual requests a client made about a property, I would probably have very few clients left. And in this region, that would happen overnight.

That is simply not how serious luxury businesses operate.

It is extraordinarily rare that I even post photographs of myself as I still want some semblance of privacy. The idea of taking a client relationship and turning it into a public social-media spectacle simply for attention is completely foreign to how I conduct business.

Because in the luxury world, privacy is part of the service.

Discretion matters.

Confidentiality matters.

Trust matters.

And perhaps most importantly, clients need to know that what they tell you stays with you.

I have a million stories I could tell from clients across virtually every level of wealth. Some requests have been unusual. Some have been demanding. Some have been funny. Some have been incredibly complicated.

But that comes with the job.

What might seem strange to me may simply be completely normal to someone else.

They are paying my business to provide a service, not to become material for my next Instagram Reel.

The biggest problem isn’t even the embarrassment. It is tempting to dismiss these videos as harmless social-media entertainment.

There can be a much more serious issue.

A 30-second video portraying a client as demanding, eccentric, entitled or unreasonable may seem funny to the person posting it. But the client may be identifiable through their voice, location, travel plans, company, property, circumstances or even the timing of the incident.

And suddenly, what looked like harmless content can become a privacy and security concern.

Someone who is publicly known to be staying at a particular resort, renting a particular villa or travelling in a particular location may not want that information broadcast to thousands—or potentially millions—of people.

High-net-worth individuals can have particularly strong reasons for wanting their movements, residences, travel schedules, family circumstances and business dealings kept private.

The irony is that some people selling luxury are seemingly forgetting one of the fundamental things wealthy clients are actually paying for: discretion.

People do not pay premium prices so that their personal quirks, private conversations or business problems can become somebody else’s content strategy.

And then there is the trust problem. Imagine being a prospective client watching one of these videos.

You hear someone discussing a client’s private request.

Maybe the client’s name has been removed.

But you recognize the voice.

Or the location.

Or the property.

Or the circumstances.

Or you know the person being discussed.

What are you supposed to think?

Are you thinking, What a great professional—I want to hire them?

Or are you thinking:

If I become their client, will I be the next story they tell online?

That is the question every luxury business owner should be asking themselves.

Because reputation in the luxury sector is not built simply by showing expensive cars, yachts, villas and champagne.

It is built through relationships.

And relationships are built through trust.

Once a client believes that their private information might become public entertainment, that trust can disappear instantly.

And in relatively small luxury communities, word travels.

France takes privacy seriously. There is another particularly important consideration for anyone operating in France.

French law provides significant protection for private life and confidential communications.

Article 226-1 of the French Code pénal provides that intentionally capturing, recording or transmitting, without consent, words spoken privately or confidentially can constitute an offence punishable by up to one year in prison and a €45,000 fine.

That means the circumstances surrounding a secretly recorded client telephone call matter enormously.

And there is an important distinction here that social-media personalities should understand: recording a conversation and publishing that recording are not necessarily the same legal question.

Article 226-2 of the Code pénal provides that the same penalties can apply to retaining, making available to the public or a third party, or otherwise using a recording obtained through conduct covered by Article 226-1.

In other words, taking a recording that was obtained unlawfully and then putting it on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X or another public platform can create another layer of legal exposure.

And “but it’s true” is not some automatic get-out-of-jail card when privacy rights are involved.

The fact that someone is your client does not mean you suddenly acquire the right to broadcast their private conversations.

Being a business client doesn’t mean giving up your privacy.

This is where the issue becomes particularly relevant to luxury businesses.

A client may be discussing a reservation, a property purchase, a transaction, a family matter, a travel arrangement or a problem with a service.

It is still a private business relationship.

The CNIL, France’s data-protection authority, states that clients and other callers must be informed when telephone conversations are subject to recording or listening, including information about the purpose, recipients and relevant rights.

The CNIL also recognizes that recordings can, in certain circumstances, be used for legitimate purposes such as establishing evidence relating to a contract or transaction. But that is very different from saying a business owner has permission to take a client recording and repurpose it as public entertainment.

The purpose matters.

The circumstances matter.

The information involved matters.

And consent matters.

What happens when the client becomes identifiable?

The situation becomes even more complicated when the person can be identified.

That could happen through their name, voice, telephone number, email address, company, location, property, travel arrangements, transaction details or other information contained in the video.

At that point, you are no longer simply talking about someone telling an amusing story about a difficult client.

You may also be dealing with personal-data and privacy considerations, as well as potentially contractual, confidentiality or civil-law issues depending on the circumstances.

The CNIL’s rules around personal data emphasize that consent, where relied upon, must be informed, specific and tied to a particular purpose.

Permission to speak with a business does not automatically equal permission to become social-media content.

Those are completely different purposes.

The real question is: would you trust this person with your privacy?

This is where I think consumers should start looking at these videos differently.

Don’t simply ask whether the story is funny.

Don’t simply ask whether the client sounds outrageous.

And don’t automatically believe everything you see.

Ask yourself:

Would I trust this person with my personal information?

Would I trust them with the details of my family?

My travel arrangements?

My property?

My financial circumstances?

My business?

My security?

My private requests?

Would I be comfortable knowing that if I made an unusual request during a stressful situation, there was a possibility that someone might secretly record it and turn it into a piece of social-media content?

Because if the answer is no, why would you hire them?

Luxury isn’t about showing people how much you have.

There is an increasingly strange contradiction in luxury marketing.

The industry sells privacy, exclusivity, discretion and personalized service.

Yet parts of the social-media world seem increasingly obsessed with doing precisely the opposite: broadcasting everything.

The yacht.

The villa.

The private jet.

The resort.

The expensive dinner.

The important client.

The supposedly outrageous request.

The “look how crazy my life is” phone call.

At some point, the performance of luxury becomes more important than the actual business of providing it.

And that is where things get dangerous.

Because genuine luxury does not necessarily need to shout.

In many cases, genuine luxury is the person who quietly solves the problem, closes the laptop, puts the phone away and never tells anyone what happened.

The ultimate luxury may simply be knowing that nobody will talk about you.

After more than 15 years in this industry, I have learned that some of the most valuable things a luxury professional can offer cannot be photographed.

They cannot be put on a yacht.

They cannot be turned into a Reel.

They cannot be measured in likes.

They are trust, discretion, reliability and knowing that when a client tells you something privately, it stays private.

There will always be people chasing the next viral moment.

There will always be people who discover that outrageous client stories generate engagement.

And there will always be an audience willing to watch.

But for anyone considering hiring a luxury professional, perhaps the better question isn’t:

“How impressive is their Instagram?”

It is:

“How discreet will they be when the camera is turned off?”

Because in the real luxury world, the most impressive thing a professional can say about a client is often absolutely nothing.

And if someone is willing to sacrifice a client’s privacy for a few thousand views, perhaps the question isn’t whether the client’s behaviour was outrageous.

Perhaps the real question is what that video tells you about the person who posted it.