Sam Houston

Past

Online Marketing Manager at GamerDNA Inc.
Community Manager at gamerDNA Inc.
Game Talent Lead at GamerDNA Inc.

Volunteer Station Manager at Uberguilds Network
Volunteer Station Manager at Vanguard Radio

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2 more...

Education

Franklin University
Ohio Northern University
Hayes High School

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Recommended

10 people have recommended Sam

Connections

266 connections

Industry

Computer Games

Websites

Sam Houston’s Summary

I'm a Community person with a passion for social media. I believe we can use these new social tools and technologies to build bigger and stronger communities cheaply.

At gamerDNA I consistently rose to every challenge, with successful results that bring more value to the company. As Online Marketing Manager, I was responsible for all Community Management, Customer Support, and Public Relations for gamerDNA. Over the past year I’ve become a leader in video game social media and community management. Most recently I’ve been on panels at the Independent Game Conference East 2009, and PAX 2009 with representatives from Yelp, EA, Ubisoft and Turbine, where we discussed Community and Social Media. In January 2009 I personally launched GameIndustryTweet.com, a web directory of game industry professionals and companies on Twitter, which received coverage on the game press sites Kotaku, Joystiq, Destructoid, G4TV.com and many others. At E3 2009 gamerDNA launched TweetMyGaming.com, a site that tracks all the gaming conversations on Twitter, a project that I co-lead the design and development for and represented the company in interviews for MTV and Current.TV.

During my time at gamerDNA I coordinated and executed press plans that have had big outcomes. GamerDNA’s September 2009 re-launch received coverage on Kotaku, BigDownload.com, Mashable.com, VentureBeat.com, along with community press coverage on podcasts and blogs. With my background in community fan sites, I was able to successfully leverage my community connections to increase exposure and community loyalty for gamerDNA.

Sam Houston’s Specialties:

Online Radio Stations, Game Fansites, Video Games, Promoting events through the internet, public relations, Marketing, gaming communities, Community Management, Social Media

Sam Houston’s Experience

Online Marketing Manager

GamerDNA Inc.

(Computer Games industry)

June 2009 — October 2009 (5 months)

-Successfully launched the new gamerDNA.com on September 2nd 2009. Coordinated press demonstrations and interviews with
gamerDNA CEO. Launch press included articles on VentureBeat.com, Mashable.com, Kotaku.com, BigDownload.com, and various podcast interviews.

• Coordinated, filmed, and produced video interviews with the VP of Products that were part of the "gamerDNA Townhall" series of
community focused Question and Answer style videos.

• Promoted to Head of gamerDNA Public Relations (August 2009). Continued Community Management duties of managing all
Customer Support, communicating with users via Social Media and Company Blog, and creating all content for the Company Blog.

• Created weekly reports that were distributed to the entire company every Monday. Reports consisted of metrics from the previous
week's social media activities, as well as relaying details on the previous week's progress and activities in the Community
Management, Marketing, and Public Relations spheres.
Community Manager

gamerDNA Inc.

(Computer Games industry)

July 2008 — June 2009 (1 year )

• Co-Lead the design and development of TweetMyGaming.com, a website that monitors all of the video game conversations on
Twitter.

• Represented gamerDNA at E3 2009, with daily video interviews with MTV and Current.TV in promotion of TweetMyGaming.
TweetMyGaming written interviews were published on Destructoid.com, 1up.com, Kotaku.com, and Joystiq.com after E3.

• Coordinated company trade-show parties at PAX 2008, GDC 2009, and E3 2009. Parties served as low cost methods of driving
awareness within the Game Industry, Game Press, and game communities.

• Reported to VP of Business Development & Marketing, and helped find strategic partner and relationship leads with the goal of
driving user sign-ups and revenue.

• Built gamerDNA's Social Media presence on Twitter and Facebook, and used these tools as one of our main methods of customer
support and outreach.

• Took over all gamerDNA Customer Support in January 2009.

• Coordinated and managed an event for Child's Play Charity which raised $5,000, with College Humor and AskMen.com (IGN) as
two of the participants in the event.

• Created and managed Google Adwords campaigns and regularly reported progress to Management Team and Board of Directors.
Game Talent Lead

GamerDNA Inc.

(Computer Games industry)

March 2008 — July 2008 (5 months)

-Recruited groups of MMORPG gamers to create Events teams, with the purpose of creating publicized in-game events for
strategically targeted MMORPG communities that would drive sign-ups on gamerDNA.com.
Volunteer Station Manager

Uberguilds Network

(Computer Games industry)

June 2007 — February 2008 (9 months)

• Operated Uberguilds Radio, the flagship internet radio station for The Uberguilds Network.

• Coordinated over 20 volunteers to provide audio content throughout the week for fans of a variety of MMORPG games and other
genres.
Volunteer Station Manager

Vanguard Radio

(Computer Games industry)

August 2006 — June 2007 (11 months)

• Operated Vanguard Radio, an Affiliate Fansite for the MMORPG Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, where I managed over 20 volunteers to
provide audio content to the Vanguard community.

• Covered live events such as Vanguard's launch in January 2007, as well as covering Sony Online Entertainment's Fan Faire 2007
event on location in Las Vegas.

Sam Houston’s Education

Franklin University

Marketing , Marketing , 2007 — 2008

Studied Business and Marketing
Ohio Northern University

N/A , 2006 — 2007

• Studied C# Programming, as well as courses in Philosophy, Religion and English
Hayes High School

2002 — 2006