Text 100's Aedhmar Hynes on the importance of digital PR

The momentum of the digital market is growing significantly and there’s no escaping the fact that a whole new generation is growing up digitally native, states Aedhmar Hynes, CEO of Text 100 International.

"This has brought about a huge shift in the way people communicate," she says.

“For the most part, there is a general acceptance that audiences are now influenced to a far greater degree by what they find digitally, than what one considers a traditional world,” Hynes says.

Still, Hynes said that some companies are resistant to having a digital presence, and prefer to communicate through traditional means.

Many companies are still fearful of the new medium and communicators still spend the majority of their time developing traditional forms of communications. “But how do you shift the majority of what we’re doing – which is what clients want – to the minority – which is digital?” she asked.

“Digital communications is going to have a far greater impact on achieving their business goals from a positive proactive standpoint,” Hynes believes.

Nothing is limited to the offline world anymore, she cautioned. A speech given at a conference which is picked up by a newspaper happens offline, but it would get sent out on the wire, someone would tweet about it, and upload pictures of the event on Facebook or Flickr.

“The problem is, supposing a crisis happens online and you have no presence in the digital world. This is the biggest challenge that any corporation can face right now,” she said.

"The most fundamental part of a crisis occurrence is that you’re able to respond on exactly the same forum. Companies with no online presence at all are going to be significantly challenged with dealing with a crisis if it occurs online,” she says, adding that progressive corporations would see the online space as an opportunity to think about how they use marketing, communications and advertising for an engaging online strategy.

“I think this is the chance for corporations and communicators is to really rethink how they go to market and communicate with their customers and key influencers," she concludes.

"There’s always going to be a role for both traditional and digital PR, but a transition’s occurring. And that’s the crux of what’s happening in public relations today, and the challenge is how we help our clients adapt to a digital world.”