Be Part of the Big Apple Tech Boom

View of Manhattan Bridge from our NYC offices.

There’s a bright spot on the economic horizon, especially as it rises on the Big Apple.  According to the Bloomberg administration, high tech employment in New York City has increased nearly 30% in less than 5 years.  In fact, the city reports that Silicon Alley will surpass Wall Street in job creation by the end of 2012. Now even better news: you can be part of that trend by joining Metaverse Mod Squad’s booming East Coast operations!

From hospitality to retail, entertainment to technology, Metaverse works with marquee companies and operators to promote brands, engage users and protect the safety of children.  We’re looking for part-time or full-time Social Media Managers in the New York City area that have a passion for social media, excellent writing skills, and a background in marketing/public relations.  Need flexibility?  This gig is perfect for writer/artists who desire some flexibility—including working from home!  Think we’re kidding?  Our VP Digital Engagement who heads up our East Coast operations is also a writer/journalist!  That’s just a little taste of the passionate, smart, groovy team you’ll join.

Here’s what we’re looking for:

• Successful community development expertise, hospitality or retail experience preferred.
• Experience managing social media accounts and the creation of engaging content for clients on social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Foursquare and blogs.
• Understand how to embody the voice of client brands online, regularly engaging with their core consumers on digital platforms.
• Talent for writing—and flexible enough to create content for tweens one day and boomer moms the next.
• Self-starter: ability to organize yourself (and others), juggle various personalities and organizational cultures.
• Brand development experience is preferred; knowledge of PR/communications.
• Analytics experience is a plus, decisions need be data-driven.
• Ability to interpret and analyze data to make strategic decisions.
• Experience reporting to senior executives.

Here’s what you’ll do:

• Brainstorm and implement strategy and direction for community engagement & management
• Interact with clients’ communities—and train & supervise others to do so effectively.
• Client Management
• Community support of marketing efforts
• Competitive Analysis
• Planning and execution of events, promotions, engagement efforts
• Leadership of community team members
• Working with production, engineering, art, and design teams to ensure community needs are met

Here’s what you have:

• Bachelors Degree.
• 2 – 4 years working with a team, preferably managing some team members
• 1 – 3 years community development & engagement

Here’s what you need to do:
Send resumé and cover letter with links to communities/sites that you’ve managed, moderated and/or to which you’ve contributed engaging content to hr[at]metaversemodsquad.com with the subject line: East Coast Social Media Manager.

Metaverse Mod Squad Appoints Jon Paul Buchmeyer, Vice President, Digital Engagement

New York, NY (PRWEB) January 11, 2012 - A year after establishing a New York office inthe burgeoning high tech corridor of DUMBO, Metaverse Mod Squad, the leader in managed digital services for social, gaming, and online communities, has further expanded East Coast operations with the appointment of brand marketing veteran Jon Paul Buchmeyer as Vice President, Digital Engagement. Buchmeyer will focus on servicing marquee East Coast clients like Carnegie Hall, HarperCollins and the NFL, as well as business development with New York advertising, marketing and public relations agencies.

“Our East Coast business is booming, especially our social media management services, so it makes sense to hire someone with Jon Paul’s wide-ranging skills and talents,” said Amy Pritchard, Metaverse CEO. “His background with top tier agencies leading marketing communications for some of the world’s greatest brands makes him a terrific addition to the Metaverse team.”

Prior to joining Metaverse, Buchmeyer developed social media expertise through his popular blog Poptimistic.com, working with clients that included Wells Fargo and Loews Hotels. Previously, he was a founder of marketing communications firm Tentpole NY whose clients included Condé Nast Traveler, The Economist, and MICHELIN guides, among others. Before starting his own agency, he lead the Brand Marketing practice at top-10 agency Ketchum overseeing award-winning work for clients including Absolut, Canyon Ranch, Hyatt Hotels, Samsonite and Santa Margherita Wines. For nearly seven years, he was a Communications Director at Condé Nast Publications.

“Having worked with a diverse range of brands—from wine and spirits to travel and leisure—I knew immediately that Metaverse Mod Squad offers unique services for companies looking to expand their social media presence,” says Jon Paul. “After working with them on a Carnegie Hall youth social media project, I’m thrilled to add my strategic marketing skills full-time to Metaverse’s repertoire, helping brands effectively engage with their customers in the digital space.”

Buchmeyer is also an accomplished writer, with work published in Bon Appétit, Condé Nast Traveler, Afar, American Way, EnRoute and Food & Wine. He was a finalist for the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Award for his humorous memoir Alphabet City: My So-Called Sitcom Life about life as a gay Mary Tyler Moore. He graduated from the University of Texas-Austin, and lives in New York City with his husband and little dog Frida.

Metaverse Mod Squad is the leader in managed digital services for social, enterprise, and gaming communities. From community management to moderation and customer support, Metaverse works with marquee brands and operators to promote brands, engage users, and protect the safety of children. It maintains a team of professional staffers around the world in several languages. It also has a 24/7 operations center in Sacramento, California and an office in Brooklyn, New York. http://www.metaversemodsquad.com

The press release on PRWEB can be found here.

Meet the Metaverse Partner: CLARA Insight

In this latest installment of our “Meet the Metaverse Partner” blog series, we and our new friends at CLARA have teamed up to write blog posts on our new partnership.  Click here to see what they wrote on their site:  Enjoy!

As a managed digital services provider, we’re always on the lookout for tools that make us more efficient, intelligent, and insightful.  We have some terrific tech partners in that regard, from CRMs for our customer support agents to filtering tools for our moderators.  Now we’re excited to announce a new partnership with CLARA, a company that has developed a revolutionary analytics platform specially designed for community managers like ours.

Today’s community managers not only interact with users and customers, but they also interpret communications that when identified and used properly, can increase revenue, improve product development and support, and drive new marketing campaigns.  CLARA Insight makes their jobs a whole lot easier.  It uses artificial intelligence to categorize the sentiment of each post, creates detailed profiles for every member, and identifies hot trends, all in one simple and beautiful interface.  Community managers can also set alerts, assign tasks to team members, and most importantly, generate customized reports with the click of a button.  That means our community managers are that much more efficient, smart, and savvy, and we’re all for that.

To learn more, you can check out CLARA’s website, e-mail us at hi@metaversemodsquad.com, or contact CLARA’s Rick Vidrio at rick@clarahq.com.  Take him up on the free trial and let us know what you think!

–Mike Pinkerton

Being a Cool Kid: Key Steps to Getting “In” With Your Community, Part Two

So, you’re probably as giddy as a varsity cheerleader to continue on the arduous and socially challenging path of gaining a place among the “in” crowd in your community. Like your best friend from high school, I’m here to help you through the transition. Today we’ll discuss how being empathetic and entertaining can not only help you to gain popularity, but to parlay your rockstar status into developing a thriving and supportive community for all to enjoy.

Be Empathetic: Some people can remember the person they wished they were most like in high school, but everyone remembers the one person that was there to help them through the scholastic social jungle. If you really want to soar to the top of the social stratosphere, make sure you’re empathetic to your board members’ needs and feelings. It’s easy to drop the ban hammer and give the boot to an inappropriate member, but what sets a drum major apart from the fourth seat bass drum player is an ability to understand that uncharacteristic lashing out can be a call for help. Be the listening ear that your best friend from high school was when you were dumped; chances are, the person that causes you the most trouble in your community may have something hard going on in their personal lives, that causes them to in turn give you a hard time. Exercising patience and empathy can not only boost your social credibility and status, but helps to foster a supportive community.

Be Entertaining: While being a forum or community moderator does have its share of class clowns, evil bullies, and groups that are “too cool to talk to you,” you’ll fare well by letting your personality shine. Perhaps you weren’t the prom queen or star quarterback, but chances are you have charisma to spare and a flair for finessing the English (or other) language in a way that both delights and entertains your community. Parlay this experience into entertainment; if permitted, feel free to let your hair down a bit and joke with your users! Have a laugh, share a smile or give virtual hug. Perform as the lead cheerleader would for a rowdy football audience, taking care not to do too many back flips; no one likes a show-off, but being yourself and being excited about the product or service you represent aids a new mod’s social acceptance amongst permanent board or community members.

As a forum or community moderator, you’re like the kid from out of town that everyone’s heard about; use this buzz to delight your users with your knowledge of the product or service you represent, your acutely tuned listening ear, your love of sharing engaging content and your awesome personality. If you were previously dubbed the “Most Likely To Scrub Toilets” or the “Class Nerd”, this is your chance for vindication; after following these steps you’ll be prepared to be the community or forum moderation rockstar that you’re born to be! Make sure a space is cleared off at the cool kids table for you, because soon you’ll have permanent residence with the social elite.

- Lyn Muldrow

Being a Cool Kid: Key Steps to Getting “In” With Your Community, Part One

As a freshman in high school one of the most woeful and terrifying experiences had, after stepping through the cold metal doors of the learning institution that you’ll hate for the next four years, is deciding how to reach the upper echelons of the social ladder. Considering you’ve only had five years to learn the fundamentals and three to figure out who you might be, these last four years of school are a daunting leap into social experiences that may indeed shape your life. As a new forum or community moderator, you’re the freshman looking to mingle amongst the social elite; the question is, how do you get “in” without being overzealous or obnoxious? Here’s a few simple ways to drive yourself to the top of the ladder in no time.

Be Educated: Because you’re a mod, you’ll have a reputation coming through the door; much like the scrawny kid with taped glasses or the super tall and thick guy with the flat top haircut, a moderator is often times sized up before they introduce themselves to the community. Given that you might not be the first or only mod, its up to you to not only get in there and hit the ground running, but to come in with a wealth of knowledge about the product or service the community surrounds. If you’re the forum moderator for a game, by all means play the game and familiarize yourself with the game you’ll cheer-lead for. Knowing the product or service inside and out, including common “message board lingo,” will do wonders for your credibility and likeability as well; users love to feel that staff has the same enthusiasm when talking about the product or service as they have.

Be Engaging: It’s one thing to be a cool kid, but quite another to be the kid everyone wants to hang around. In online communities, its not enough for a moderator to know their stuff; getting in there and providing insight and relevant content for users to consider and chat about is what distinguishes the yearbook layout girl from the yearbook staff leader. While one is in charge of cleaning up and laying down pictures, the other helps to shape and mold the total experience for others to enjoy. Guide conversations as they adhere to your company’s standards, and give users content to come back to daily.

Understanding your product or service and sharing that knowledge with your community in a way that is engaging are two surefire ways to help you break in to the social stratosphere. Show that you’re interested in not only keeping the communities you moderate safe, but in being a contributing and lasting member of the community as a whole. It’s not enough to be on the sidelines as a mod; you’ll have to get out there and be the star player if you want to really make an impact on your community! Stay tuned- tomorrow I’ll share two additional steps that will help you get that coveted seat at the cool kid’s table.

-Lyn Muldrow

Happy E-Holidays!

To our customers, partners, and friends who have sent us Holiday E-Cards, thank you very much and Happy Holidays to you as well.  Here’s a collage of a few, along with some links to the magic.  Enjoy!

Happy Holidays from the NFL

From the good counselors at Pillsbury

If you dare, here’s a link to the Inversoft elves

And finally, a hilarious holiday video from Zendesk (for a terrific cause):

Development and Community: A Happy Marriage or an Ugly Divorce?

Often times as Community Professionals we are forced to work with what we have and accept that there are some things that are just out of our control. More often than not we are contracted to staff an environment, engage users, manage content, ensure users safety, execute QA testing and a whole slew of other services, but we are left out of key decision making and have to make the most of what we get. As a Community Manager I’ve been in a situation in which I was simply reacting to an already existing development schedule and I’ve also been able to work with development staff to enable them to integrate community and development into one cohesive package. Success can be found with either situation, but one thing is generally true, when community and development are in-sync the chances of a happy marriage is much higher.

Even if development and content creation are off limits there are still things that can be done as a Community Manager to ensure the message you are sending to the community is closely linked to the content that is coming down the pipe. It’s wise to look at a development schedule as far into the future as possible to have full understanding of where your product is headed and making sure to connect the dots. One key part of managing a community is making sure that your community is always happy today, but it’s great to have a good idea of how you’ll make them even happier tomorrow. A flexible game plan is a great way to structure your community engagement strategy so that you have a general understanding of what you’ll be doing down the line, but will also be able to make changes on the fly as needed.

Although it’s very important to never breach any boundaries, things can really take off for particular products when Community Managers are able to provide input and be more involved in creating content that matches the engagement strategy. Except for very rare cases, Community Managers will generally not be in charge of production (otherwise we’d be producers!), but a little involvement goes a long way. While we’ll probably never drive all of the development or content creation that occurs, some suggestions and input at key moments can allow you to match up your engagement strategy with content that you know is a great fit.

As with most community responsibilities communication is paramount. Often times there are entire channels of communication that are not open to a Community Manager and opening them can streamline creating the right content in the right way. As always, it is up to our clients to determine exactly what our roles are, but it is possible that our communication can enhance their product and optimize processes. It never hurts to ask!

– Teddy Boxberger

Susie, Our Chief Moderator

I just love her.  And I love this picture of her and her daughter, Bonnie.  How cute is that name?

Text Communication: When It’s Time to Pick Up the Phone.

When I think of social media, I think of Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, Digg, Flickr, YouTube, Linked In, Reddit, Meetup, Stumbleupon, Google, blogs, chat, email, and the list goes on. I was a little surprised to be reminded that the primary definitions of social are “characterized by friendly companionship or relations,” “living in companionship with others in a community, rather than in isolation.” In today’s world, we are connecting with people “in quantities” – sending tweets to our mass followers on Twitter, or posting photos on Facebook to share with 600 of our closest friends and family, but increasingly doing so in isolation. I am by myself when clicking away on my computer keyboard or tablet or when texting on my phone. Is social media moving us further away from the roots of being social?

Working for a largely virtual company with a geographically distributed workforce, I have to communicate with a variety of people daily. I utilize several tools to do so: email, instant messages, among other internal tools. Sometimes I have to spend a few minutes (or longer) trying to explain a situation, or sort out a miscommunication that occurred because the person who received my electronic message didn’t understand what I was saying, misinterpreted my tone or intention, or I didn’t clearly communicate the message in my IM or email. We often forget that electronic communication can often be one dimensional: Intent, tone, feelings, empathy, sympathy, etc., not always easily conveyed and if one attempts to do so (especially in a rush), the results are often not what was intended. I forget the most basic, probably most overlooked, oldest and definitely the most powerful tool: the telephone.

Sometimes, the only way to achieve your objective of deeper meaning and bond with people is to talk to them. Not a short line of typed words here or there, but actual conversation where you can hear the other person’s voice, get the sense if they truly care, connect, hear the tone, inflection, meaning behind what they are saying and avoid some of the simplest miscommunications. Of course, for those of you that cannot pry your fingers off the keyboard or treat your laptop like a security blanket – there is Skype or Second Life (or a plethora of other online tools and communities) that offer voice chat capabilities. The issue is to utilize a tool that allows you to hear the other person’s voice, or people’s voices and connect with them – audibly. It’s important to remember the power of a simple mouth to ear conversation. It doesn’t have to take much time and often saves time and reduces the back and forth in emails and texts, “did you mean to say…?” or “I need some additional information please.” Applications such as Skype also make great training tools – talking to new hires and sharing screens is a great way to train, to connect, and helps reduce newbie anxiety. Talking can make people feel part of the company’s community and not isolated or alone. It can create a distinction between being anonymous on a message board, and being a part of a serious company. That added touch of personal, voice conversation is the professional connection.

So when social media isn’t enough and you can’t reach out and touch someone, do the next best thing – call them. (Or Skype them.)

- Gina Miller, Director of Operations

Social Media and the Law

Last week I led a discussion on Social Media and the Law at Boston College’s “Social Media for Managers” class. We touched on a range of topics, including Publisher Immunity, Labor Relations, Cyberbullying, and COPPA. Thanks to the fine students of the class for reading the cases in advance and participating in an interesting discussion. And thanks to Professor Kane for having me! Slides are below.

–Mike Pinkerton, COO/General Counsel

Social Media and the Law

View more presentations from Mike Pinkerton