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

Divine risk mitigation

Noah was a savvy guy. When God told him a flood was coming, he didn’t sit about waiting for the rain to start. He built that ark and collected those animals. And Noah’s forward strategy paid off.

Are you an ark builder? Or a good swimmer?

Why plan for risk?

Planning for risk is nothing new. We’ve been taught to plan for risk since infancy.

Learning to walk, run, ride a bike — all these formative risk situations taught us self-preservation in the simplest of ways. Fall over? Crash your bike? Someone is there to help you up and give you a cuddle.

By the time we are packed off to school, tangible consequences are part of the equation. Forget your lunch? Hungry is on the menu. Dog ate your homework? Huh?! Apparently they’ve heard that excuse before.

As we enter our teens, consequences have increasing meaning. Feelings and emotions embroil us in risk mitigation strategies. Regardless, we do stupid things like ride on motorbikes with boys (because he’s cute rather than a safe driver) and drink cheap wine (because it’s ‘sophisticated’ rather than enjoyable).

By the time we reach adulthood, perhaps with some further study behind us, and are in the workforce, we’re paid to care and worry about other people’s risks. The naivety of our youthful risk-taking behaviour and ‘it won’t happen to me’ mentality is well behind us, and risk-and-consequence is something we do on autopilot.

So why is the idea of planning for social media risk so hard for people to grasp?

Examples ...