Social Media Rules of Engagement: Why Your Online Narrative is the Best Weapon During a Crisis

3The hurt locker:getting inside is easy; escaping an art

hurt locker

noun. a period of immense, inescapable physical or emotional pain

(Urban Dictionary)

Unsurprisingly, social media can be both the cause of and the solution to your organisational crisis. It’s an ally and an enemy at the same time.

There is no quicker, surer way to get into the media than through a #PRFail; and there is no quicker, surer way to dig yourself out of the hurt locker than by using the media to your advantage. The ‘to your advantage’ part is where organisations find themselves rapidly treading water in the prevailing media world of click-bait and news-for-sale.

Far from being an equal, symbiotic relationship, the traditional media’s use of social media as a news-for-sale content service often ignites issues on social media in the first place, where the framing of issues lines deep pockets and a general inclination toward a click-bait mentality is geared for sales rather than truth.

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There is no quicker, surer way to dig yourself out of the a #PRFail hurt locker than by using the media to your advantage #SMROE

Oscar Wilde wrote in 1891:

In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralising. Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. ...