Brendan Hodgson

Over the past few years, and through the efforts of lots of people, Hill & Knowlton Canada has been positioning itself to address the growing impact that digital media is having on the business of public relations and public affairs. It’s been an interesting ride, particularly coming out of the dot.com bubble. Clients have always shown interest - though fewer were prepared to jump in than we would have liked - but it’s paid off in some interesting work… work that’s prepared us for where we are today.   

However, with social media continuing to fundamentally re-define the changing communications dynamic within which we now work - as marketers, public affairs and crisis practitioners, and corporate communicators - this positioning has taken on an added urgency. As our global CEO reinforced only a few days ago at our global digital practice meeting in Phoenix, H&K’s future success will be based largely on the extent to which our company overall becomes more digitally engaged, and on the ability of our people to advise clients of the importance of new media as an increasingly vital and strategic part of their overall communications solution. 

Which makes a ton of sense if only for the fact that in Canada (as well as in many other parts of the network I’ve learned) our clients expect it, are asking for it, and are increasingly looking to their PR agencies to deliver a more robust and relevant offering that integrates it. 

But to do this effectively, much needs to happen – not least finding the right people to help drive this focus on digital engagement and integration, and who can speak knowingly to the opportunities and issues that sit at the intersection of digital and PR. That said, finding the “right people” who do more than simply produce digital outputs in the same way we do press releases is anything but easy. Fortunately, our Canadian leadership team, like the uber-boss himself, has refused to simply pay “lip service” to the importance of digital, realizing that we can no longer continue to rely on purely conventional theory to drive growth. Which means walking the talk and building a team that can serve as catalysts for change – strategically integrating digital in ways that deliver real value to our clients. 

Which is why H&K, and the Digital Communications Practice in particular, are particularly thrilled to welcome David Jones, one of Canada’s foremost social media and digital evangelists, to Hill & Knowlton as vice president, digital. In his multi-faceted role, David will be working with me, the digital team, and our digital champions across the network to further grow our integrated offering.

In addition to his extensive PR knowledge (and you can peruse the impressive particulars here), David, as many of you know, is an early-adopter in the use social media for PR purposes. He authors a popular Canadian PR blog (prworks.ca) and co-hosts the weekly Inside PR podcast (insidepr.ca) and is a frequent speaker at communications conferences on how to use social media as an effective PR tool.

So what more is there to say about this blistering shift in the Canadian social media and PR landscape? Methinks nothing save perhaps a line from the King himself:  A little less conversation, a little more action please…