Go Quiet and Others Will Speak for You
It’s one thing to be a startup in stealth mode quietly building momentum and readying a launch plan with zero or near zero external visibility. Or be a company in a mandatory quiet period around an IPO or other funding event. It’s quite another to be an organization or company with steady, historical visibility and a number of subscribers and followers, etc., that has gone silent for months in the midst of (some apparently significant) change.
If a known colleague asks me, “Is company or organization X still in business?” I’m inclined to reply with as much candor and honesty as possible in the interest of building trust and sharing potentially valuable insights with that person. A leading indicator this question is coming is an absence of news, blog or social posts for more than three months. Note: I will not share any information if the consequences for the entity are certain to be negative or if some agreement prohibits me from doing so. But that’s not exactly the point.
That forces me into a position, albeit a position of choice, to say, “As far as I know, they have not sold their interests or closed up shop, but that’s a question for their leadership.”
That will do two things with negative impact. First, it will breed more questions about the organization and quality of its leadership. Second, it will cause those questions to proliferate among those that know the organization (including those who may have funded its activities previously) and those the organization would like to know, but will have to overcome a “behind the chains” situation with them from the outset.
On only one occasion in my marketing and PR career have I advised a client that saying nothing was the very best thing to do. But that was in response to an anticipated negative news item that failed to materialize. We were ready for it if it did, but in the interest of ‘awareness elimination,’ of that precise piece of news, we said nothing. It accomplished the goal and the organization’s regularly scheduled marketing and communication activities resumed.
If a company or organization goes silent due to acquisition / sale, if it succumbed to the Valley of Death, or if its raison d’etre has ceased to be due to ecosystem change or its mission has simply been accomplished, that’s fine. It happens all of the time. Those entities should let their subscribers and followers know, and hopefully ask them to take action, i.e. follow and subscribe to the acquisitive company, or an industry partner that shares its values, areas of interest and expertise.
I’m thinking about finding a way to assign measurable value to the importance of consistency and flow of awareness activities like blogs and social posts to some result. And the measurable evidence of the negative consequences for failing to do so past a certain point. I’m sure I’ll get there.
For now, reader, the point is, know that if you are not speaking for yourself, you’ve lost control of your message and reputation because others - accurately or inaccurately - will speak for you.
