Monthly Archives: October 2011

The Shape of Crisis Communication

Published on 31st October 2011 by . Leave a Comment

How much has the game changed?

The rise of social media was said by some to indicate the beginning of a reclusive state, where communication was done from our individual devices while everyone stayed at home, or in the office. While it’s true that most of us have our nose buried in Tweets or status updates for a significant part of the day, it’s also brought about some unexpected real-world circumstances, as this quote from a PR News Online article explains:

Deveney said the current Occupy Wall Street movement may be the next catalyst of change in crisis communications. “This movement is fascinating,” he said. “One would think that if everything is going in the direction of social media and the movement is so youthful, that everybody would be sitting in coffeehouses and cubicles and Facebooking and tweeting. Instead people are coming together in real spaces and creating community.

Far from isolating people, social media is now being used to bring large groups together in the real-world to take the virtual conversations face-to-face. What this does is enforce something that we’ve long known about crisis communications – while technology provides us amazing tools to gather and share information, a living, breathing human holds more sway than any electronic communication possibly could.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Leave a Comment

Watch Your Step with Social Media

Published on 29th October 2011 by . Leave a Comment

Get prepared before trouble finds you

As social media becomes more and more prevalent in our lives, so too do social media based crises. Just looking at the pages of this blog you’ll find story after story of runaway Twitter posts and customer-alienating Facebook gaffes. How, then, does the novice social media user stay out of trouble? In a Globe and Mail article, business expert Tony Wilson gave four tips to avoid your own crisis situation:

  1. It’s not just teenagers who damage their reputations using social media. If you’re in business, the legal profession or any other sector in which confidentiality is of the utmost importance, what you say online can be used by your competitors or others to the detriment of your company and your career. “Should I be tweeting at all?” has to be the first question you ask yourself.

  2. The damage can be done without you realizing it. Even the most harmless comments within something as mundane as a job description or a status update can reveal to others whose job it is to keep an eye on you, a new process or technology. So if you’re in high-tech, be careful what you say about what you do, especially on LinkedIn.

  3. It’s important to have social media policies in place within your organization so that all employees, from the CEO down, are conscious of the blunders they can make by even the most innocuous updates or posts. Employees should be made aware that breach of these policies will have serious consequences, including the possibility of dismissal. These policies can and should be incorporated within employment agreements.

  4. Someone within the organization should be tasked with regularly educating employees from the CEO down on the hazards of social media use, including updates on the horror stories that are reported in the media every day. 

What most of these boil down to is a prime tenet of crisis management: preparedness is key. If everyone involved is properly trained, educated, and aware, the risk of trouble falls dramatically.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Leave a Comment

Crisis Management in the Real World

Published on 26th October 2011 by . Leave a Comment

Fictional story prompts real talk

A new movie, “Margin Call,” seeks to give audiences a glimpse into the world of fast paced, high level crisis management. While it misses the mark in terms of reality, Forbes business writer Coeli Carr saw the film as a perfect opportunity to talk with BCM president Jonathan Bernstein about coping with crisis.

In the interview, BCM president Jonathan Bernstein gave three situations that call for immediate crisis management:

  1. When the crisis seriously threatens your reputation. “Your company’s reputation is its most valuable asset, and the court of public opinion can literally dismantle a business,” says Bernstein, noting the classic example of Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that counted Enron as a client. “Andersen’s reputation was damaged not just because of what they had done, but because of poor communication and refusing to acknowledge anyone working for them could make a mistake.”

  2. When the crisis can cause dramatic harm to your bottom line. The impact on your financial situation can lead to interruption of your business operations.

  3. When the crisis affects day-to-day business operations, which means you can no longer serve your clients. “If your customers perceive inconsiderate or unethical behavior, they’ll bail on you,” says Bernstein, noting the recent Netflix debacle.

Jonathan’s new book, “Managers Guide to Crisis Management” (McGraw-Jill, 2011) seeks to give managers (or aspiring managers!) a leg up on the often-daunting tasks associated with crisis prevention, response, and management in today’s rapid fire business climate.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Leave a Comment

He Wrote WHAT?

Published on 25th October 2011 by . Leave a Comment

Hot tempered exec crosses the line

We’ve seen crises caused by errant emails, we’ve seen crises caused by potty-mouthed execs, but throw both of those at a blogger that has well over 100,000 followers and you’ve got a truly spectacular mess on your hands. Check out this quote about the incident, from an AdWeek article by David Griner:

The blogger in question is Jenny Lawson, best known as “The Bloggess” and named by Nielsen as one of “Top 50 Most Powerful Mom Bloggers.” She recently received a poorly worded pitch from the agency about the Kardashians, and she sent back her usual reply—a picture of Internet man-meme Wil Wheaton collating paper. The BrandLink PR rep, “Erica,” responded a bit defensively. But it was the vp, “Jose,” who stepped well over the line with a reply-all calling Lawson a bitch. She wrote back, prompting Jose to dig himself a deeper hole by replying that she “should be flattered that you are even viewed relevant enough to be pitched at all.”

While dropping the B-word was a very immature act, to me the real insult was the statement that the blogger (and, by extension, her readers), “should be flattered that you are even viewed relevant enough to be pitched at all.”

Well, BrandLink, if you’re pitching product placement shots to a blog, then obviously you think its readers are potential customers and, really, it’s you who should be flattered that they buy your product and/or support whatever celeb you’re pushing.

If I were the Kardashians I’d be taking my considerable PR budget elsewhere, you don’t need the firm responsible for your publicity creating crisis management nightmares out of nothing.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Leave a Comment

VYou!

Published on 20th October 2011 by . Leave a Comment

BCM gets involved in conversational video

As Crisis Manager readers already know, we’ve been playing with a new toy for the past few days. VYou, a social media startup that accurately describes its service as “conversational video,” allows users to submit questions to an expert, which the expert then answers in the form of a video.

Luckily for us, we have a resident expert, one Jonathan Bernstein, founder and president of Bernstein Crisis Management, to answer all of your questions (crisis management or PR related please, or we could stray into some dangerous territory!).

We’ve already had quite a few people test his mettle with questions like these:

What is the first thing to do when faced with a crisis?

Is it better to respond immediately ot a crisis that is being covered in the press or is it better to wait and formulate a response?

Is it beneficial to involve legal counsel in a crisis involving legal issues or will it appear as “admission” of wrong doing?

What would you tell managers at all levels who are 55+ to make them understand the importance of being prepared for social media crisis?

How do you use social media as part of managing a crisis?

Here’s an example, straight from our VYou:

If you’d like to see more video responses, have a question of your own, or are just curious about VYou, head on over to our page and check it out!

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Leave a Comment