Managing Crises with Visual Content

I recently came across this article on ProBlogger: How to Beat Your Competition Online by Trying this One Thing. Within the article, the author discusses how “content is no longer king. Epic content is.” And that “smart marketers and entrepreneurs have shifted focus from content strategy to visual content strategy.”

Basically, the message is that the more visual your content, the better it will help you stand out through the incessant noise.

This, of course, can also work against you. For example, a visual crisis (an explosion, a natural disaster, people being injured or falling ill, etc.) has big potential these days to go viral in a heartbeat. If the visuals inflict a strong negative emotion that is relatable, it will most likely spread like wildfire.

So what does the reality of “visual content being epic” mean for your crisis plan?

It means two very important things:

1) Remember this when planning for and identifying crises

Remember to consider this fact when planning for potential crises, as well as when determining the level of a crisis that you may be facing.

Do not underestimate the power of visual content and negative emotion.

Underestimate it and you may find yourself managing a very unwanted and would-have-been-avoidable situation.

2) Use it to your advantage

It also means that you can plan to fight fire with fire – or simply use this knowledge to your advantage. If you can use visuals to help tell your story in a crisis, then by all means, do so. We all know the saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words”. So why spend time painting pictures and relaying facts and updates through words only, if you can communicate them even more effectively through heart-warming and share-worthy visuals?

For example, if your team is on the ground helping victims and this is important to communicate to stakeholders, show images, pictures and/or videos of the active work you’re doing.

Or, if a product was wrongfully labeled as “hazardous” for whatever reason, don’t just say that it’s been wrongfully labeled, show it.

Important to note! Remember to play devil’s advocate before publishing any visuals to rule out any possibilities of them backfiring and being used against you.

Be smart!

So yes, visuals are epic and can be used very strategically. They can also be used against you. So be careful, understand this truth, plan for it – and then use it to your advantage in smart crisis communications.