By Jonathan & Erik Bernstein on January 26, 2011
Frequent and personable communication pays off for US State Department With many businesses still struggling to understand and utilize social media to the fullest, nobody expects a government agency to be proficient. Surprisingly, the State Department is surpassing expectations by not only holding accounts on Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr, but also maintaining an active and […]
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By Jonathan & Erik Bernstein on January 24, 2011
Get your story out first As anyone who’s been involved in a crisis knows, bad news travels alarmingly fast. This has been compounded in recent years by the evolution of cell phones into mobile computers, creating the need for near-instant reactions to breaking crises. When the situation does arise, Crisis Management 101 dictates that you […]
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By Jonathan & Erik Bernstein on January 22, 2011
How will you communicate in a crisis? At around 7 a.m. Friday, Bank of America Corp. experienced a partial outage of its online banking service. The Charlotte, N.C., bank used Twitter to get the word out, but it did not announce the outage on its home page. Impacted consumers simply got an error message. “It […]
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By Jonathan & Erik Bernstein on January 19, 2011
[I very rarely cross-post, but I couldn’t resist putting this “press release” here as well as on Huffington Post today, where it was titled “Mom Always Wanted Me to Be a Lawyer.” Already, from HuffPost, I had one person think I was serious, which was kinda fun. I hope you enjoy it!] Bernstein Crisis […]
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By Jonathan & Erik Bernstein on January 16, 2011
Just being on this list is a crisis. Businesses are not expected to be perfect. In fact, the public is fairly forgiving of small mistakes if they are admitted to and corrected quickly, and even big problems can be countered over time. The problem arises, though, when an organization lets things go too far. This […]
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By Jonathan & Erik Bernstein on January 11, 2011
One bad quote can send you scrambling for crisis management Boy, was last week a tough one for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. With his city stung by a 20-inch blizzard, its sixth-worst on record, and massive delays in cleaning up the mess, “Mayor Mike” managed to put his foot in his mouth for […]
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By Jonathan & Erik Bernstein on January 10, 2011
Good crisis management means being prepared for the worst Being well prepared beforehand is probably the number one way to minimize the impact of crises on your organization. While this may seem obvious, most are at a loss as to what steps to take to ensure this preparedness. In a recent post on the Preparis.com […]
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By Jonathan & Erik Bernstein on January 5, 2011
Engaging in reputation management is not a choice, but a necessity The availability of easy online publishing tools has given everyone a voice and the power to reach an audience. This can be a very positive thing, what with fans, evangelists and brand ambassadors helping to spread the word. On the other hand it opens […]
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By Jonathan & Erik Bernstein on January 3, 2011
Asking a few questions now can prevent crises later One of the very best ways to prevent crises is to avoid them altogether. While obviously this isn’t always possible, there are steps you can take to shift the odds in your favor. In a recent blog post, Barry Hurd, President of 123 Social Media, gave […]
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By Jonathan & Erik Bernstein on December 22, 2010
Outstanding examples of good crisis management The primary goal of Merrie Spaeth’s “Bimbo Awards” is to give a humorous look at crisis communications gone wrong. Occasionally, though, Spaeth picks out a few examples that stand in stark contrast to her usual fare – those who got things right. Here’s a sample, from her “Bimbo of […]
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Jonathan L. Bernstein, founder and Chairman of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. has more than 25 years of experience in all aspects of crisis management – crisis response, vulnerability assessment, planning, training and simulations.[Read more ...]
Erik Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management. Erik started with BCM in 2009 as a writer and subsequently became social media manager for the consultancy itself as well as for a number of BCM clients before moving to the president position.
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