We recently sat down with Parry Headrick, Senior Director of Communications for Calypso Communications, a marketing communications and PR agency in Portsmouth, NH.  At Calypso Parry leads public relations and social media strategy for a range of clients and works closely with Calypso’s in-house creative department on branding and marketing strategy.  Parry is a recent transplant from San Francisco, CA where he spent 10+ years developing and executing public relations and social media strategy for a range of companies across the tech and consumer sectors. You can follow him on Twitter: @pheadrick

What is your favorite part of your job?

I love the diversity of projects and clients that I’m able to work on, as well as helping to develop the PR and social media strategies that can lead to increased engagement with key audiences. Above that, actually seeing that your counsel and execution really is driving results: that’s the best feeling of all.

You went to school for journalism and started your career in newspapers, why did you make the switch to PR?

I wrote a series of stories about a 10-year-old boy who fell ill based on an environmental issue in his back yard (a chemical spill of some sort). I wrote it as a straight news piece for the front page of Sunday’s paper. In the morning I went to the store to buy the paper, and this was the headline: “‘Toxic boy’s’ illness still a mystery.” I didn’t write that headline; no one had called him “toxic boy,” and I was disgusted by the sensationalism. It was a life-changing event for me, and I knew right then that I needed to find a different career.

You recently moved back east from San Francisco, what are some differences that you’ve noticed in the corporate culture?

San Francisco is a much more transient place. Not many people are actually “from” San Francisco, so you have an interesting collection of the world’s people congregating there. It’s nice in that you get interesting perspectives. On the downside, talent is extremely expensive, and job turnover is fairly high because there are bidding wars over great candidates. Aside from these issues it’s actually pretty similar.

What are your top pieces of advice for businesses that want to improve their social media footprint?

Listen, listen and listen. If you actually care to understand what people care about, it informs everything else you do in the social realm. It helps you to be more authentic, which is crucial to attracting audiences. The second thing I’d say is that developing original content is the lifeblood of the social machinery. The more high quality content you can produce for your constituencies, the faster your circle of influence will grow. Bonus point: don’t just listen and share your own content — share the quality content of others. Reciprocation is virtuous and just good karma.