The great equalizer of the digital age is the ability for anyone to post something, and have it go viral. The risk and challenge that goes along with this democratization of content is how to control and protect your business when things go public. There are a few ways you can use these scenarios as an opportunity to grow instead of letting them damage your brand. We live in an era where even bad news can be good news if you know how to manage it. A media leak could end up being beneficial. Whether the leak is true or false, it’s important that you have a plan in place ahead of time so that you can respond quickly and effectively without losing control or sounding defensive.
Be Prepared For The Worst
It’s one of the scariest moments in any business owner’s life: you’re riding high, and then suddenly your brand is everywhere. You’ve gone viral!
The problem is, now you have to manage that attention. You don’t want to be the source of a media leak strategy—you want to make sure your company is ready for it when it happens.
Before anything bad happens, make sure you have a plan in place for how you’ll respond if it does happen. This includes having a crisis communications team ready to go at all times so they can get in touch with reporters right away and issue an official statement if necessary.
If you’re not prepared for how the media may react to your story, you could end up with a negative reputation that will haunt you for years. By creating a media leak strategy, you can protect yourself from some of the most common pitfalls of going viral and manage any negative outcomes that might come from sharing content with the world.
Why You Need a Media Leak Strategy Anyway
Here are five reasons why you need a media leak strategy:
- It will help prevent leaks from happening in the first place. Leaks happen when someone on the team doesn’t follow the rules or decides not to follow them simply because they don’t think it applies to them or that it won’t be an issue if they do go against them.
If everyone knows what their role is then there will be less risk of leaks happening at all. - Informing employees about what constitutes as leaking information will ensure that everyone understands what is acceptable or not acceptable behavior so there aren’t any bad surprises later on down the road (i.e., after something has gone viral).
This means no more surprises like “oh I thought we were just talking amongst ourselves but now everyone knows!” Because if everyone was made aware beforehand then no one would ever feel like they were tricked into sharing confidential information without meaning too. - A media leak strategy helps define the parameters of how much information should be shared through various channels such as email listservs, blogs posts etcetera; which limits how far reaching any damaging information could potentially spread.
- Having clear guidelines also helps prevent employees from going overboard with sharing sensitive details while avoiding overzealousness by ensuring people know where those boundaries lie – especially if those lines aren’t clear beforehand.
- Having these policies in place shows others who work outside our organization how seriously we take this issue and allows us some leverage if something does slip through cracks later down road (which happens!)
As with any good plan, preparation is key—and when it comes to an unexpected burst of popularity for your brand or service, being prepared for what happens next will help make sure things stay on track.
What To Do If You (Accidentally) Go Viral?
If you find yourself going viral in a negative way, don’t panic. Don’t ignore it.
The absolute worst thing that could happen after something like this is if someone panics and makes things worse than they need to be—so don’t let anyone do that! You need to stay calm and collected so that you can handle the situation as best as possible without making mistakes or saying something wrong yourself (which could further exacerbate the situation).
If you go viral and you don’t expect it, it can be tempting to respond immediately. But don’t fall into this trap. Take a few hours to think about what you want to say, and how you want to say it.
Don’t be funny or clever while everything’s happening either; this will only come across as disingenuous and self-serving, which will make things worse for you in the long run.
It’s better to take a deep breath and respond in a way that reflects positively on your brand.
By managing your media release campaign with ease, controlling what information is released to the press in advance, and establishing communication protocols, you can put yourself in the best position to weather any digital storm that comes your way.
Plan Each Step of Your Media Release Campaign With AmpiFire
Working with AmpiFire is a great way to get more attention online, because we provide a content marketing service that allows you to control what information is released to the media sites, as well as when and how it is released to the public.
We’ll create news articles, blog posts, videos, infographics, slideshows, audio ads that are guaranteed to boost your online exposure, and we’ll distribute them across all of the top media platforms and blogs. You won’t have to worry about getting them into the right publications—we do all that for you too!
And we’re not just talking about getting you some online visibility and traffic; we’re talking about getting you real business results.
