Crisis Management Musts: Owning Your Story

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Taking control of the narrative is essential One of the biggest battles you’ll fight in crisis management is the one to control the narrative surrounding whatever’s occurred. This doesn’t mean you can bury facts or cover up wrongdoing, but it does mean that you’re able to put your side of …

Crisis Management Quotables…on Making Communication Work

Erik Bernstein crisis communication, crisis communications, crisis management, crisis management quotables, crisis public relations, Crisis Response, Erik Bernstein, Jonathan Bernstein, public relations, reputation management Leave a Comment

Ensuring communication is effective is core to crisis management success It turns out composer John Powell, perhaps best know for scoring movies like How to Train Your Dragon, Happy Feet and Kung-Fu Panda, knows a thing or two about verbal communication as well, making him the subject of today’s Crisis …

Crisis Management: Through the Lens of Failure

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[Editor’s note: Thank you to our colleague Tony Jaques for submitting this post on how crises tint stakeholder’s views of the organizations involved long after they’re gone.] One of the underestimated impacts of a crisis is the fact that every subsequent event is magnified through the lens of the original …

Harry Reid Inserts Foot in Mouth, Flunks Crisis Management

Jonathan Bernstein crisis communications, crisis management, Crisis Prevention, crisis public relations, Crisis Response, Erik Bernstein, internet reputation management, Jonathan Bernstein, online crisis management, online reputation management, political crisis management, PR, public relations, public speaking, reputation management Leave a Comment

Insensitive remarks and a flop of an apology Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is no stranger to criticism regarding public comments, especially when it comes to race, and he’s getting another lesson in why you should watch what you say after dropping a couple of doozies at the Asian …

Playing Chicken with Crisis Management

Jonathan Bernstein crisis management, crisis planning, crisis preparation, crisis preparedness, Crisis Prevention, Crisis Response, Erik Bernstein, Jonathan Bernstein 1 Comment

Having a plan in place means you won’t be left scrambling when crises appear In order to be as effective as possible, crisis planning needs to come before a crisis actually hits. While it is possible to create and enact a plan after things get messy, it’s never easy. In …

Crisis Management Tactics: Updates on Updates

Jonathan Bernstein crisis communications, crisis management, crisis public relations, Crisis Response, Erik Bernstein, Jonathan Bernstein, public relations, reputation management 1 Comment

“We’re working on it” can buy more time than you expect When you encounter a crisis, the pressure to immediately make a statement is immense. Not only will your stakeholders be clamoring for you to talk, and angry if you don’t, but you also risk damaging rumor or innuendo taking root …

Chase’s (ineffective) Compassion-Free Crisis Management

Jonathan Bernstein crisis communication, crisis communications, crisis management, Crisis Prevention, crisis public relations, Crisis Response, Erik Bernstein, Jonathan Bernstein, public relations, reputation management Leave a Comment

Lack of much-needed compassion leaves bank’s communications falling flat Having a debit or credit card charge declined is both frustrating and embarrassing no matter who you are or what you’re buying, something we would expect a bank to be aware of. That’s why, when we spotted the below email from …

Crisis Management Musts – Keeping a Healthy Trust Account

Jonathan Bernstein crisis communications, crisis management, Crisis Prevention, crisis public relations, Erik Bernstein, Jonathan Bernstein, PR, public relations, reputation management, strategic reputation management Leave a Comment

Considering how stakeholders will react to change is key The impact of stakeholder trust on reputation and the bottom line is at an all-time high, yet organizations are burning what little faith their proponents have left on a daily basis through penny pinching, poor customer service, or a simple lack of …

Crises are Also Great Opportunities

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[Editor’s note: The following post comes to us from friend and colleague Janine Hills, founder and CEO of Vuma Reputation Management. While it’s normal to feel a crisis is nothing but negative, Janine presents a strong argument for the advantages to be gained by facing difficulty head-on.] Adversity has its …

Crisis Management Quotables…on The Damage One Lie Can Do

Erik Bernstein crisis communications, crisis management, crisis management quotables, Crisis Prevention, crisis public relations, Crisis Response, Erik Bernstein, Jonathan Bernstein, public relations, reputation management Leave a Comment

17th century wisdom that’s even more true in the 21st This time around, our Crisis Management Quotable comes to us courtesy of a 17th century Spaniard who wore many hats, from scholar and philosopher to army chaplain. A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity. — Baltasar Gracián The meaning …

Walmart Takes Control in Tracy Morgan Crash Crisis

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Good crisis management means finding a way to take control Sometimes, there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent negative incidents from happening. That said, just because you couldn’t prevent something doesn’t mean you have no control of the situation. Take the recent crash involving a Walmart company truck …

Emerging Info Weakens GM’s Crisis Management Effort

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How should the embattled automaker react? What do you think is one of the most damaging pieces of information that could emerge when you’re in the midst of crisis management for a massive mistake? If you said evidence that you’ve made that same mistake more than once, you must be …

How to Plan for Any Crisis Management Scenario

Jonathan Bernstein crisis communications, crisis management, crisis preparation, crisis preparedness, Crisis Prevention, crisis public relations, Crisis Response, Erik Bernstein, Jonathan Bernstein, public relations Leave a Comment

Having crisis plans in place will immensely increase your chances of coming out in one piece While we’re seeing an increase in the number of organizations that have crisis management plans, the vast majority of those plans are still woefully inadequate. In a recent interview, NFIB.com’s Adam Wren asked our …

Fake Online Reviews and Your Business

Jonathan Bernstein crisis communication, crisis communications, crisis management, Crisis Prevention, crisis public relations, Crisis Response, Erik Bernstein, internet crisis management, internet reputation management, Jonathan Bernstein, online crisis management, online reputation management, PR, public relations, reputation management, social media, social media crisis management, social media reputation management Leave a Comment

Could this case set a new precedent when it comes to online reputation management and the law? No sooner did we finish discussing the fact that Yelp itself acknowledges 16% of the reviews submitted to its site to be fakes (which leaves, in our opinions, a significantly higher actual number …

Crisis Management Infographic: The 3 C’s of Credibility

Jonathan Bernstein communications, crisis communication, crisis communications, crisis management, crisis management expert, crisis management tactics, crisis management training, crisis preparedness, Crisis Prevention, crisis public relations, crisis resources, Crisis Response, crisis training, Erik Bernstein, infographic, Jonathan Bernstein, media crisis management, media relations, PR, PR resources, public relations, reputation management 6 Comments

Not sure why your crisis communications aren’t having the desired effect? You could be missing one of these vital components. It’s hard to read the headlines without seeing a crisis or two, and, except in rare cases, they all require a response. These responses take many forms – press releases, …