“What Am I Meant to Say Now?” A guide to content marketing during tough news cycles
There’s nothing quite like realising your latest piece of marketing content is about to go live at the exact wrong moment.
Maybe the world has just woken up to devastating news and you’ve got a chirpy promotion announcement scheduled. Or there’s a social justice movement gaining momentum while you’re experimenting with your first meme. Or a national lockdown has just been announced and you’ve got a post queued that jokes about ‘doing anything to get out of the office’.
That last one actually happened to me.
When crisis or tragedy hits, you don’t want to be the brand that gets called out for insensitivity, the one who fails the read the room, or the one that stays silent when your audience expects you to speak.
We’re living in the age of bad news
The reality is, if you’re putting content out regularly online, you’re going to find yourself in a similar situation at some point. We’re seeing more ‘bad news’ than ever before — geopolitical conflicts, natural disasters, political turmoil, economic downturns, and ongoing battles for basic human rights. It’s no longer a case of if your content will ever be affected by this kind of tough news cycle, but when.
And when that moment comes, what you say (or don’t say) matters.
Posting the wrong thing, or posting the right thing at the wrong time is easily done, but can have serious consequences. At best, it makes you look uninformed. At worst, it makes you look insensitive, careless, or even exploitative.
And I genuinely think most of us want to get it right. Not just to protect our reputation, but because it’s the decent thing to do. Navigating tough news cycles effectively, however, requires keeping up to date with them in the first place.
Right content, wrong time
Some of the biggest marketing blunders in recent years have come about, not because brands were actively trying to spread negativity or hate, but because they didn’t stay informed and/or read the room:
After the Boston Marathon, Adidas sent an email to runners with the subject line: "Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!" Under normal circumstances, this would be a harmless message. But in 2013, the Boston Marathon was the site of a terrorist bombing that killed three people and injured over 260 others.
In 2017, as Hurricane Harvey battered Texas, causing catastrophic flooding, Airbnb sent out an email with the subject line: "Live the life aquatic with these floating homes."
More recently, PrettyLittleThing’s rebrand to a more conservative aesthetic dubbed ‘old money’ or ‘clean girl’ has made headlines for all the wrong reasons, with many of its target demographic calling out the brand for promoting right wing values and conservatism. It’s hard to say whether the rebrand would’ve been more highly regarded if conservativism wasn’t quite so much of a global threat right now, but we can be sure that PLT did not read the room — or understand the progressive values held by its audience.
These aren’t just embarrassing mistakes. They can actively alienate audiences, damage brand trust, and in some cases, force companies into major PR damage control mode.
The takeaway here? Stay up to date. Make sure you’re informed about what’s going on in the world, especially news most closely linked to your industry. In doing so, it becomes easier to monitor your content in terms of what’s appropriate, what’s risky, and what’s outright offensive.
Your audience is watching
Brands making mistakes in tough news cycles isn’t new — but social media has made the consequences more immediate and more severe.
And rest assured, audiences are watching. And they’re increasingly willing to call out brands that get it wrong. Studies show 59% of consumers in the US and UK believe it’s important for brands to take a stand on social and political matters, and two-thirds say they’re inclined to support or boycott businesses based on their response.
Ignoring a major crisis — or worse, posting something completely tone-deaf — makes it clear that your brand is either uninformed or doesn’t care. Neither is a good look.
What are organisations meant to do?
On one hand, we all want to remain sensitive and empathetic. However, bad news happens all the time, and the world can’t stop turning. Pausing content on a temporary basis out of respect for a national tragedy or global health issue might be a good option for now, but ultimately, as a small business owner or service provider, you still need to make ends meet.
The key is to know when to speak up, when to stay quiet, and when to adjust your content to ensure it’s as appropriate, respectful, and timely as possible. But doing this depends on all sorts of factors — who you are, what you do, who your audience is and what they value.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution unfortunately. But there is a loose framework that, when followed, can help you get it right.
A practical guide to getting your content right
I created my recent guide, What Am I Meant to Say Now? to act as a practical toolkit for businesses and individuals who want to approach content marketing responsibly during tough news cycles.
This guide is for small to medium enterprises and individuals who handle their own content marketing — those who might not have the budget for a crisis PR team, but who still need to navigate tricky moments with care.
The guide includes:
Four outlined approaches to handling content marketing when a crisis hits
A practical checklist to help assess your content (and work out whether you should or shouldn’t comment on an issue or crisis)
A guide to creating sensitive, thoughtful content that you can refer back to whenever you need
Relevant audience insights to help determine what your audience actually expects of you
Sound like something that could help you? You can download the full guide for free below.
