Going Viral: That will never happen to you, will it?
Most business owners spend a great deal of time thinking about the risks they can see.
Cyber security. Insurance. Health and safety. Employment law. Data protection. Financial controls.
All are important, and rightly receive attention.
Yet one of the fastest-growing business risks often receives little or no consideration until it's too late. It doesn't arrive in a brown envelope from a regulator or as a letter from a solicitor. It can begin with nothing more than a stranger standing outside your premises holding a mobile phone.
Within minutes, an ordinary business interaction can become a public spectacle.
A member of staff says the wrong thing. Someone loses their temper. An employee tries to stop filming without understanding the law. A customer posts only part of the conversation online. Before the business owner is even aware something has happened, hundreds—or even hundreds of thousands—of people have already formed an opinion.
For many businesses, the reputational damage begins long before the facts emerge.
The uncomfortable reality is that this isn't a marketing problem.
It's an operational one.
Businesses with clear procedures, well-trained employees and confident managers generally deal with these situations calmly and professionally. Businesses without those foundations often react emotionally, creating exactly the dramatic content the person behind the camera was hoping to capture.
Going Viral Has Become Someone Else's Business Model
Social media platforms reward engagement.
Unfortunately, outrage often generates far more engagement than professionalism.
Increasing numbers of online content creators deliberately film confrontations because they know conflict attracts views, comments and shares. Some openly admit they visit businesses hoping to provoke a reaction. Others ask deliberately challenging questions, continue filming after being asked to leave, or edit footage to remove important context.
Whether the motivation is advertising revenue, increasing followers or simply online attention, the result for the business can be the same.
A single uncomfortable interaction can remain online indefinitely.
Amanda Jane of Big Brand Impact, who specialises in helping organisations protect and recover their reputation, has seen first-hand how quickly a seemingly minor incident can escalate online.
As Amanda points out, the problem is rarely the camera itself.
It's what the camera exposes.
Questions every business owner should ask include:
Would every member of staff know how to respond if someone began filming today?
Do employees understand what they should—and shouldn't—say?
Is there an agreed procedure for dealing with livestreams, influencers or members of the public recording on or near your premises?
Who is authorised to speak on behalf of the business?
What happens if a drone begins filming your site?
If your answer to any of those questions is "I'm not sure", you're relying on luck rather than preparation.
The Risk Most Businesses Never Measure
Unlike many operational risks, this one rarely provides any warning.
There is no alarm.
No system notification.
No advance email telling you someone intends to upload a video featuring your business.
Everything can appear perfectly normal until the moment somebody presses "Record".
That's why many organisations underestimate the risk.
The problem develops quietly over time:
Staff have never received guidance.
Policies have never been reviewed.
Managers assume everyone will use common sense.
New starters simply copy how previous employees responded.
Eventually someone tests those assumptions.
Unfortunately, by then the footage may already be online.
The Hidden Costs Can Be Far Greater Than You Think
Many business owners naturally focus on the visible costs of an incident.
The hidden costs are often much greater.
Consider just a few examples:
Management Time
If three senior managers each spend twenty hours dealing with complaints, customers, staff concerns, insurance providers and media enquiries, that's 60 management hours.
At a conservative management cost of £60 per hour, that's £3,600 before normal business has even resumed.
Professional Advice
Depending on the seriousness of the incident, organisations may need external support from solicitors, HR specialists or public relations professionals.
Typical costs can include:
Employment law advice: £250–£450 per hour
Crisis PR support: £2,000–£10,000+
Reputation management campaigns: several thousand pounds depending on the scale of the issue.
Recruitment Costs
If a key employee resigns following online abuse or public criticism, replacing them is rarely cheap.
Research from the CIPD suggests that once recruitment, onboarding, management time and lost productivity are included, replacing an experienced employee can cost many thousands of pounds, particularly for specialist or management roles.
Lost Business
Perhaps the biggest cost is often impossible to calculate accurately.
How many potential customers quietly decide not to contact your business after watching a viral video?
How many existing customers begin questioning whether your organisation is professionally managed?
How many tenders or contracts are lost because your reputation has been damaged?
Those costs rarely appear on a profit and loss statement.
They simply appear as lower sales months later.
The irony is that many of these situations are entirely preventable.
Not because businesses can stop people filming.
But because they can control how prepared their own people are when it happens.
A Wider Business Control Issue
At first glance, this might appear to be a social media issue.
It isn't.
It's a business control issue.
After working with hundreds of SMEs, I've found that organisations caught out by these situations often share the same underlying weaknesses.
Not because they're badly run.
Because they've grown without stopping to formalise the way they operate.
Amanda's original draft highlights several of the common gaps:
No documented guidance on filming or recording.
Employees relying on personal judgement rather than company policy.
No clear process for dealing with unexpected visitors.
No agreed spokesperson.
Policies that exist but have never been discussed with employees.
Little or no practical training.
The camera simply exposes problems that were already there.
In many ways, it's no different from poor health and safety management.
You wouldn't expect employees to operate machinery safely without training.
So why would you expect them to deal confidently with an aggressive influencer or a member of the public filming outside your premises?
Good businesses don't rely on guesswork.
They rely on systems.
Why Growing Businesses Are Most at Risk
Ironically, success often increases the risk.
As businesses expand they usually experience:
more employees
more visitors
more deliveries
more customer interaction
more public visibility
more opportunities for someone to start filming.
The informal approach that worked perfectly when there were four people in the office becomes much harder when there are twenty-five employees working across different departments or multiple locations.
New starters copy existing staff.
Existing staff develop their own approaches.
Managers assume everyone understands "how we do things."
Unfortunately, everyone usually has a slightly different interpretation.
That's when inconsistency appears.
One employee politely refuses to comment.
Another argues.
Someone else starts explaining confidential information.
A fourth employee reaches for the person's phone.
Each believes they're helping.
Each creates a different outcome.
Consistency only happens when everyone understands exactly what is expected before the situation arises.
The Cost of Assumptions
One of the biggest risks I see in businesses has nothing to do with influencers.
It's assumptions.
"We've probably covered that."
"I'm sure somebody deals with it."
"Everyone knows not to say anything."
"They'll just use common sense."
Unfortunately, assumptions can become very expensive.
Imagine just one incident where:
a customer cancels a £15,000 contract because they no longer trust your professionalism;
two senior managers spend three days handling complaints and reassuring clients;
your marketing team postpones planned campaigns to deal with reputational damage;
staff morale falls because employees are criticised online;
recruitment becomes harder because potential candidates have seen the footage.
The total cost can easily exceed £20,000–£30,000, even before considering any long-term impact on your reputation.
For larger organisations, the financial consequences can be significantly higher.
Yet most of these costs never appear under a budget heading called "viral incident."
They quietly emerge through:
reduced sales
lost productivity
management time
cancelled appointments
recruitment costs
lower employee confidence
damaged customer trust.
These are exactly the kinds of hidden operational costs that many businesses fail to measure.
Five Practical Steps Every Business Should Take
The good news is that preparing your business doesn't need to be complicated.
A few practical measures can dramatically reduce both the likelihood and impact of a public incident.
1. Create a Clear Policy
Employees shouldn't be expected to invent responses under pressure.
Develop simple guidance covering:
filming on or around your premises;
dealing with members of the public;
media enquiries;
drone activity;
recording conversations;
escalation procedures.
Keep it practical—not a thirty-page legal document that nobody reads.
2. Train Everyone
A policy sitting in a folder doesn't protect your business.
Employees need to understand:
why the policy exists;
how to respond calmly;
when to involve management;
what information should remain confidential.
Regular refresher training is just as important as the original briefing.
3. Decide Who Speaks for the Business
Every organisation should have nominated individuals authorised to make statements.
That prevents well-meaning employees from accidentally providing inaccurate or commercially sensitive information.
A simple response such as:
"I'm not authorised to comment. Let me arrange for the appropriate person to speak with you."
is often all that's needed.
4. Review Your Wider Systems
If this area hasn't been reviewed recently, ask yourself what other operational risks might also have been overlooked.
Businesses with clear documentation, defined responsibilities and regular training usually perform better across every aspect of the organisation—not just reputation management.
5. Learn Before You're Forced To
The cheapest time to improve your systems is before they're tested.
Waiting until your business is trending online is almost always the most expensive time to discover where the weaknesses were.
The Bottom Line
Going viral for the wrong reasons isn't simply a social media problem.
It isn't just a marketing problem.
And it certainly isn't something that only happens to large organisations.
It's a business resilience issue.
Like most operational risks, it remains largely invisible until the day it happens.
By then, your reputation is no longer being judged by the quality of your products or services.
It's being judged by how your people respond under pressure.
The businesses that recover quickest aren't necessarily those with the biggest marketing budget or the most followers.
They're the businesses that have prepared.
They've invested time in creating clear procedures, trained their people, documented responsibilities and made sure everyone understands exactly what to do when the unexpected happens.
Whether the challenge is a difficult customer, an influencer searching for content, a live stream outside your premises or a drone hovering overhead, preparation almost always produces a better outcome than improvisation.
Ultimately, this isn't about stopping people filming.
In most situations, you can't.
It's about ensuring your business responds professionally, consistently and confidently every single time.
Because whilst you can't control someone else's camera...
...you can control what it records.
Three Questions Every Business Owner Should Ask
Before you dismiss this as something that won't happen to your organisation, ask yourself:
1. If someone started filming outside your business this afternoon, would every member of staff know exactly how to respond?
2. Could you confidently demonstrate that your employees have received appropriate guidance and training?
3. Are you relying on documented procedures... or simply hoping everyone will use their common sense?
If any of those questions make you pause, your business may have a hidden operational risk that's worth addressing before it becomes tomorrow's viral video.
Ready to Strengthen Your Business?
At The Efficiency Method, I help business owners identify the hidden operational weaknesses that quietly cost time, money and reputation.
Together we'll review your systems, documentation, responsibilities, training and day-to-day processes, helping you build a business that's more resilient, more efficient and far less dependent on chance.
The result isn't just greater organisation.
It's greater confidence that your business is prepared for whatever tomorrow brings.
📅 Let's have a chat:https://calendly.com/hello-tem101/lets-have-a-chat
Acknowledgement
This article was written in collaboration with Amanda Jane, Founder of Big Brand Impact.
Amanda specialises in helping organisations protect and strengthen their brand reputation through effective communications and crisis management. Her insight into the growing impact of social media, online reputation and public perception provided the inspiration for this article.
If you'd like to learn more about Amanda's work, you can contact her at:
Amanda Jane
Big Brand Impact
🌐 https://bigbrandimpact.com
📧 amanda@bigbrandimpact.com
