If like me, you were a social media manager in 2020:
- I’m sorry.
- The digital landscape has not gotten much better, has it?
For many of us, 2020 was the ultimate stress test. Nonstop news cycles, endless brand statements, and comment moderation marathons turned a lot of innocent meme queens and kings into seasoned crisis professionals overnight — for better or for worse. For all the chaos that year brought, we were never really rewarded with stability. Instead, the digital landscape recalibrated to a new and different kind of chaos.
Six years later, we’re navigating AI-generated (and sometimes scarily hyper-realistic) misinformation, significantly reduced moderation across certain platforms, algorithm shifts and platform positioning that reward outsized outrage, and an audience that is almost guaranteed to pull brands into political and cultural conversations. Add in the occasional senior executive going rogue online, and suddenly, content calendars everywhere felt less like a solid plan and more like an inciting event.
The reality is that communications professionals, from journalists and PR practitioners to designers, digital strategists, and social media managers, are no longer operating in a neutral digital space. The environment has become reactive and politicized, moving at breakneck speed, fundamentally changing how we think, respond, and strategize.
When Something Happens, Do NOTHING (But, not like that)
Maybe a CEO says something offensive. Maybe an executive’s misconduct gains traction. Maybe a news article ties your client to someone controversial.
As a brand protector, the immediate instinct is to correct, explain, and clear the name, but we’ve seen time and time again that that method almost immediately escalates everything.
NOTHING is a framework that invites professionals to pause and deliberately assess the full situation before building a management plan that keeps your positioning intact. Here’s how it works:
| N | Notify and Monitor Your Channels. You just noticed that something is brewing across channels during a scan. Immediately notify the team of what is taking place, and begin monitoring conversations and sentiment. |
| O | Organize Internal and External Comms. Compile main themes and sentiments across engagements to share with stakeholders, and coordinate a plan of action for internal and external communications. |
| T | Templatize Your Replies. Once you’ve received additional guidance and context from your client on the situation, determine if canned responses and redirects are an appropriate response to the situation — and draft accordingly. |
| H | Help De-escalate The Situation. As stakeholders work through next steps, use platform features—and your best judgment—to de-escalate. |
| I | Incorporate Mindfulness. To prevent burnout, check in with team members to ensure that monitoring and analysis aren’t falling on just one person. |
| N | Navigate Timing. Review upcoming scheduled content to ensure posts won’t aggravate the situation. Work with all stakeholders to ensure you’re responding appropriately to the situation. |
| G | Gauge Long-Term Impact. Continue to analyze/advise on the long-term impact the situation will have on your client’s reputation, and adjust your strategies accordingly. |
Doing NOTHING, step-by-step
First, notify the right people and monitor closely. Get a clear picture of sentiment, volume, and media coverage before responding publicly. Next, organize internal and external communications so stakeholders understand what’s happening and what’s actually a risk.
In many scenarios, it’s better not to reply immediately. Capture notable comments. Document trends. Wait for guidance. Meanwhile, you can de-escalate by limiting comments if necessary, pausing paid campaigns, and refraining from non-essential engagement that could inflame the situation.
And while all of this is happening, don’t forget the humans behind the screens. Crisis monitoring is exhausting. Rotating responsibilities and checking in with your team isn’t just kind — it’s sustainable.
As the situation evolves, you can navigate timing thoughtfully. Maybe that means issuing a formal statement. Maybe it means a gradual return to regular cadence. And over time, you gauge the long-term impact. If audience trust has shifted, that’s a bigger strategy conversation, not something a single caption can fix.
When Silence Becomes the Story
Of course, there are moments when saying NOTHING isn’t an option. If journalists, customers, or employees start publicly questioning your silence, it introduces a new layer of risk t and further devalues your brand messaging. At that point, your strategy needs to pivot. Even then, the goal isn’t speed for speed’s sake. It’s clarity, alignment, and long-term credibility.
And in this digital environment, those three things are what keep brands steady when everything else feels reactive.
