When should my brand stay silent on tough issues?

[shaownhasan]

If you’re uncertain when to speak macau business email list or stay silent, ask yourself if it’s appropriate to contribute to a tough cultural moment. Do you have any data or insights from your community to justify going quiet for a few days?

Remember, staying silent isn’t going dark. To clarify, social silence is a strategic pause on content that’s either not relevant to the current situation or doesn’t contain critical information for your audience at the time.

During the 2023 wildfires in Maui, Hawaii, Hawaiian Electric Industries stopped all content that wasn’t about the wildfires or disaster response. Their normally varied, busy Instagram account pivoted to sharing only updates on outages, restoration efforts and fire updates for a few weeks to ensure residents could get the most up-to-date information without the clutter.

A post from Hawaiian Electric Industries' Instagram during the wildfires
When should my brand pause publishing?
On top of not commenting, you may need to pause all social content. Before hitting pause, ask yourself if the world needs to hear from your brand right now.

A text-based image that explains why social silence can be an effective tool in social media moderation. In certain cases, social media silence can help foster a more positive brand perception, it allows more necessary voices to maintain dominance and it recognizes that there's nothing business as usual about the situation.
How you handle public criticism determines the path to maintaining your reputation. The most important tactic: Do not ignore negative comments. You should aim to reply to most comments—positive, neutral or negative.