Why it pays to be a geek in PR

I’ve got a lot of geeky friends. In fact, most of my friends are a geek in some way, shape or form. They’re programmers and designers, but they’re also music geeks, theatre geeks, language geeks, running geeks, media geeks and so on, and for the most part, it’s a big part of why I enjoy being around them. They go out of their way to make themselves into experts in something, whether it’s completely esoteric or utterly practical. It will come as no shock to anyone who has ever met me that I’m a geek too – and it makes me a much better PR guy.

Being good at PR or marketing requires a thirst for knowledge that I would consider above the average. It means more than just knowing how to do your job – it means knowing about technology, about history, about the media, about sociology and a million other tiny little pieces before you can really create anything that comes close to resembling a “strategy.”

Consider the game of chess. A very simple game, but one that requires an intimate knowledge of not only the rules, but the intricacies of the pieces. To be any good at chess means a lot more that just knowing that bishops move diagonally and pawns only move forward – it takes knowing how each of the pieces relates to one another, and how all of the individual pieces comes together to make something much stronger than they are individually.

It’s said quite often that public relations, marketing or advertising is “not about the tools.” That’s a fair statement, but at a much higher level, the profession requires such an intense mastery of the tools – especially when it comes to social media – that it’s not sufficient just to have a textbook understanding of the tools. In order to be a grandmaster, you have to experience them on a level that cannot be read or explained. That’s where being a geek comes in, and that thirst for knowledge and personal depth – no matter how obscure interacting on Twitter or maintaining a podcast may seem to friends outside the industry – becomes a point of differentiation between “practitioner” and “expert.”

For those who are new to the industry, or trying to break in – your best investment in yourself, and ultimately your future tax bracket, is to be a geek. Dedicate yourself to learning about the whole, but spend the extra time understanding each of those moving parts. Your friends might think you’re a bit odd, but the benefit you provide to a future employer will be well worth it.