The Risk Paradox: Why serious messages need less seriousness
I got asked a great question last week that got me thinking - and thinking differently - about risk on social media.
The question was about tone. Specifically: How do you balance seriousness with humour or creative risk when you’re dealing with very important, potentially sensitive information - like health or safety messages?
The logic goes: if the message is serious, the tone should be too. No flair. No fuss. Just the facts.
And on the surface, that makes perfect sense. You don’t want to mess with important advice - especially when there’s a risk it might be misunderstood. Better to be cautious. Better to sound serious.
Because if you’re not serious, people won’t take you seriously, right?
But that’s the paradox.
On social media, playing it safe can be the riskiest move of all.
Safe content doesn’t spread
This kind of thinking leads a lot of teams to water things down, pare things back, or just sanitise content into oblivion.
But social media doesn’t work like that. Platforms are designed to reward interaction, not intention or importance.
No engagement = no traction.
And if you want important messages to be seen - truly seen - you need reach, which is driven by engagement. Likes help, but comments and shares are better. Shares are gold.
So if we want visibility, we have to optimise not just for clarity, but for connection, which often means taking creative risks.
Not being flippant - but being interesting.
Because most of the time, outside major emergencies, your audience isn’t actively looking for your messages. They’re scrolling. Distracted. Busy. If we want cut-through, we have to earn attention.
The rules change in a crisis
In a genuine emergency, the rules flip.
During disasters people are actively looking for our updates. They’ll share anything useful, and in those rare moments, clarity and authority might well be enough.
But outside those high-alert windows, if the message really matters - if it’s health-related, safety-related, or potentially life-saving - we need to go further.
We need people to care.
We need them to notice, engage, and share - sometimes even into private spaces we can’t reach (WhatsApp chats, Messenger groups, closed Facebook groups).
And that kind of sharing doesn’t happen with bland content. It happens with content that surprises, resonates, or sparks a reaction.
The fear, of course, is that if we’re not serious, we’ll lose credibility.
But credibility doesn’t come from tone. It comes from consistency and relevance.
If we can be regularly interesting and useful - and meet people where they are - we build credibility through connection.
Being serious without being engaging is just being ignored with authority.
That’s not a win.
Who’s getting it right?
Some of the most trusted public organisations already understand this - and they’re doing it well.
NZ Police routinely use relatable humour to make serious safety messages spread - without compromising their authority. They’re credible because they’ve earned attention over time.
Queensland Health mixes meme-style content and cultural moments with practical health advice to huge effect. A recent post about the importance of staying hydrated went viral - not in spite of the light tone, but because of it.
These teams aren’t being funny for the sake of it. They’re using humour, storytelling, and cultural fluency as deliberate strategies - not to undermine the message, but to protect it. To make sure it lands.
It might look risky. But not being heard is riskier.
If it matters, make it matter
If you work in a space where your messages are critical - but the audience isn’t paying attention - you may need to take smarter, braver creative risks.
Not to trivialise the message. But to make sure it gets seen, and shared, and acted on.
So don’t confuse seriousness with credibility. You don’t need to be funny, but you do need to be interesting.
Because the real risk doesn’t come from being bold, it comes from being ignored.
What do you reckon? Comment below or email me@seamus.nz