Hinge’s Jarryd Boyd on staying relevant through adaptability

Jarryd Boyd is a certified life and relationships coach and the senior director of global communications at the global dating app Hinge—where he’s an expert at helping people find the right connection, whether it’s through their words or their profiles.

“I’m passionate about cross-functional collaboration, driving a brand’s reputation and visibility in alignment with its target audiences, and penetrating the evolving cultural and media landscape,” Boyd told Ragan.

With over 10 years of public relations experience, Boyd empowers individuals to communicate confidently and connect deeply with both themselves and others. He blends his communications and coaching experience to help people get clear on their goals and achieve them.

Boyd’s dating advice, fun date night ideas, and relationship insights are featured across platforms like PopSugar and Bustle. 

Before matching with Hinge, the communications director, honed his craft in consumer lifestyle, tech, and social impact communications at Edelman, Praytell, and Weber Shandwick.

My first comms job was:

My first comms job was at a hospitality-focused PR agency after my first year in college. I had a summer job where I worked in InDesign to “clip” client coverage and ensure it looked polished, especially when pulling an article from a website or scanning a story from a print magazine. It was a great example of building foundational experience and knowledge.

First, I saw the full range of what it looked like to secure a placement for a client, including multi-page features, roundup inclusions, or quick mentions within a broader piece. Furthermore, I had the opportunity to see how each team would socialize the story to their clients. From reiterating the original strategy to educating the stakeholder about the impact of this specific piece, earned media most likely requires context setting.

Additionally, I learned a lot about formatting and paying attention to detail in any role I’m in. These skills build micro-moments of trust with your team members. 

The most rewarding part of my job is:

The media relations geek in me will always love seeing a story go live, especially when you’ve been steadily nurturing a relationship with a journalist. Yet, these days, I love the process of coaching spokespeople and executives. 

From developing a strategy, working on messaging, and understanding the person’s strengths and opportunities to prepping for an interview, seeing how they do live, and seeing the story go live, it’s a fulfilling iterative process for me. 

Being a company spokesperson can be a vulnerable and time-intensive experience, and they trust their comms team to coach and guide them. I enjoy supporting them, seeing how they grow over time, and watching their impact. Talk about public relations!

The most difficult part of my job is:

Naturally it’s navigating how media and culture change each year. To have an impactful communications career, you have to stay attuned to your target audiences and how their mindsets, needs, and interests evolve over time — along with how to reach them. I believe that requires sustained curiosity, adaptability and grit in an already demanding industry. 

Candidly, you have to work at being a wise elephant and not an extinct dinosaur. You have to experiment with different digital platforms, even if you think they’re temporary, and always search for new inputs of information that challenge what you already know.

One way I maintain my work-life balance is:

My friends will tell you that I live by Google Calendar. I’m a visual person, so time blocks on a calendar help me prioritize what matters most to me each week. Each block becomes sacred time. 

It’s easy to get into a cycle of starting work early and staying online late, and I believe creating interventions is essential for working against that. I’ll look ahead at my week and say to myself that I want to go to a workout class at this date/time, run a long overdue errand at a place that closes by 6:30p.m., or make plans with my friends that require me to leave the office by X time. 

The way to my heart? Be the first person to send the calendar invite. 

A tool or a piece of software I cannot live without is:

I don’t ever again want to know what it is to write on a computer without Grammarly, but also, email newsletters by media outlets or reporters are just fantastic for curating the information you’re interested in.

A few of my favorites are:

• Axios Communicators by Eleanor Hawkins 
• Compass by Fast Company
• Deez Links by Delia Cai
• Pew Research’s Weekly Roundup
• Today, Explained by Vox and Vox Culture

Warning: you need to pause them when you go on vacation or unsubscribe/resubscribe when you get back. 

One piece of advice I would give other people in my profession is:

Consistently network without a timely ask for the other person but come up with personalized questions to make the conversation worthwhile.

When I cold message someone, I’m straightforward with the “why” behind the meeting. When the other person doesn’t know if you’re being friendly or if you’re waiting to ask something of them, it puts their guard up. When someone knows that you just want to build a connection with them – and that you’re on no timeline to meet – that’s when authentic and special relationships build between the right people.

Isis Simpson-Mersha is a conference producer/ reporter for Ragan. Follow her on LinkedIn.