By Caroline Voaden

Once upon a time, reputation crises were carefully managed through press releases and official spokespeople. Now they unfold at lightning speed across algorithms, comment sections and emergency podcast episodes – often with a content manager pulled into damage control behind the scenes.

Consider how quickly Choice Australia’s sunscreen testing results spilled into a social media backlash or, more recently, how just six Instagram stories from Brooklyn Beckham were enough to drag his family back into public scrutiny. 

In 2026, content and reputation are inseparable. The role of the content marketer is evolving accordingly.

But although content teams are often the first to spot an unresolved issue escalating into reputational risk, crisis response skills are still treated as an assumed capability. A new firefighting expectation is layered onto content marketing functions that are neither trained nor resourced for it.

Managing the response

Once a crisis starts to escalate, content teams are usually forced to make a series of decisions very quickly.

While content strategy alone rarely fixes the underlying issue, the choices made in those first few hours shape how the incident unfolds: how fast the story gains momentum, whether a response vacuum grows and how much damage control is required downstream. 

Decision one: Is this an issue or the start of a crisis?

Not every flare-up is a crisis. Some issues burn hot and fast; others compound into a reputational issue due to scale, timing, frequency or existing scrutiny.

The danger is assuming something is ‘just on social’ when it’s moved into the broader media ecosystem or amplifying a contained issue unnecessarily.

If your organisation has a crisis communications plan, this is the point at which it should be used. Hopefully it’s not a 100-page document buried on a server no one uses, but a strategy that clearly sets out when an issue needs to be escalated, who needs to be looped in and your immediate next steps.

If not, you’re left to make the judgement call. Ask yourself: is the issue internal or external? Is it attracting attention organically or driven by a particular community? Are regulators, journalists or stakeholders taking notice?

Decision two: Should I hit pause?

Almost always, the answer is yes. Even if your content calendar is full and you’ve got paid partnerships going live tomorrow. 

Take it from the sunscreen brands that kept running 50+ SPF Google Ads after Choice Australia’s damning test results – planned content can accelerate attention. 

Restraint isn’t an admission of guilt. It buys you time to understand the facts of the crisis and align with the wider business response. Only then can you decide what role, if any, content should play next.

Decision three: Does content become part of the response?

Not all crises require an active content response. But if a public statement is issued, it should appear on social channels and the website  – that’s where stakeholders will look first. 

Crisis communications 101 tells us silence creates a vacuum, so any messaging should be fast and consistent.

Regardless of whether further public statements are planned, social media comments and messages can’t be ignored. 

Content teams should be ready to acknowledge questions, correct factual errors where appropriate and respond in line with the broader strategy.

Then consider what not to publish. Planned content needs to be reassessed in light of the issue at hand: the public mood and legal exposure. In most cases, business-as-usual activity does more harm than good. A period of reduced activity can be strategically useful.

Decision four: How do we start publishing again?

At some point, the response phase ends and the issue moves from active management into recovery. But that doesn’t mean flipping the content machine back on.

Low-risk functional posts help test the waters, letting you gauge public sentiment while slowly easing back into visibility without creating new news hooks.

Some residual negativity is inevitable. But when aligned to broader communications pillars, content becomes a reputational lever: consistently signalling what the organisation stands for post-incident, repositioning over time rather than overnight.

As the boundary between content strategy and crisis management continues to blur, organisations must decide: will they treat content teams as ad hoc responders or strategic stakeholders in reputational resilience? The answer will determine not just how well brands weather the next storm, but whether their content functions are built to last.

Caroline Voaden is a PR crisis expert at STORY

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