I had the opportunity to interview our favorite Social Media Coordinator, #JuliaFromKI! Curious what her favorite color, animal, or KI Live blooper is? Read on to find out!

What’s your favorite color?
It has been between purple and yellow for as long as I can remember.

What’s your favorite animal?
Golden Retrievers. I’ve had 3 throughout my life.

How about a favorite food?
Sushi. Luckily for me Austin has some great sushi restaurants.

If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
I’ve always wanted to go to Bora Bora. I love the ocean!

Vanilla or chocolate?
Chocolate, hands down.

Coke or Pepsi?
I’m not a big soda drinker, but definitely Coke if I had to choose

What exactly do you do at KingsIsle? What are your responsibilities? Can you take us through a day in the life of Julia?
I am the Social Media Coordinator, so I handle just about anything involving our social media pages. My days begin by looking over our social media pages for any comments/tweets/mentions/messages and responding to them. I collect everything the players have sent over that falls under bugs to be looked at, suggestions to pass along, or feature requests, and get those over to the people who can make them happen. Throughout the day I will schedule and post our plans for the day, get blog posts and giveaways ready to go, approve comments, figure out which posts are performing well or not, and continue to be on the lookout for more tweets or comments to respond to.

How did you get to where you are now?
I grew up in Atlanta, GA and wanted to go to college out of state. I applied all over the south and fell in love with the University of Texas where I majored in Communications. I didn’t want to leave Austin after graduation so I stuck around working in social media for a little over a year before I ended up at KingsIsle where I have been for a year now!

Was it a goal of yours to get into the game industry, or did it just happen to fall into place?
It just fell into place! I have been working in social media since my college internships and when I saw the opening for KI, it sounded like a great position for me. I had a lot to learn about the gaming industry but it has been fun.

What do you think of the #JuliaFromKI hashtag?
I think it’s pretty hilarious. My friends and family didn’t believe me when I first told them I had a hashtag but now they’ll look it up on occasion and tell me what players have been tweeting about me.

Most of the KI staff members have NPCs that represent them, do you have one for Wizard101 and/or Pirate101?
I do! I am Sabrina Greenstar and Morgan Lafitte.

Do you play Pirate101 or Wizard101? If you do, can you share some information about your characters such as what their school/classes are, their level(s), and what part of the game they’re currently on? Did you play either game before working at KI?
I do! My character is currently a level 66 Balance Wizard in Zafaria. I didn’t play before working at KI but I actually do remember seeing advertisements for Wizard years ago! I actually play a lot of Rise & Destroy and a few other…secret games ;)

Were you a gamer before working at KI? What kinds of games did you play? If you weren’t, has working for a game company made you more excited about games?
I would play games here and there, but I was never a “gamer”. Working at KingsIsle has definitely made me much more in-tune with the gaming industry and what is going on in it.

What is it like working with Leala and Tom? Do you have a favorite memory between the three of you?
It’s definitely entertaining. Tom is always cracking us up with his random singing. I think my favorite memory is from when the 3 of us went to the SXSW Gaming Expo. There was a room with a bunch of games from the past set up for people to play and Leala and I went head to head in a few Tekken matches. I had no idea what I was doing. I ended up just mashing as many buttons at a time as I could and somehow that strategy worked out really well for me–I beat Leala over and over. I’m pretty sure I had tears in my eyes from laughter.

What goes into planning KI Live?
There is quite a bit of preparation. We choose the date and plan what the main topics will be about a month before. Then the day of, we spend about 3 hours getting everything ready to go—everything from setting up the room, to asking for tweets with pictures to show, to pulling together questions. It can be a little hectic fishing through all of the thousands of questions that come through on the #AskKI hashtag!

Are there any memorable KI Live bloopers you can share?
My favorite KI Live bloopers come from mic testing. Tom will come up with some ridiculous noises or songs to sing to test the sound and Leala and I just sit there laughing. Looking back at the recordings of him is so entertaining. I love that Leala decided to add a blooper reel at the end of one of the episodes so players can see how much fun we have.

What is your favorite and least favorite part about working at KI?
My favorite part is the laid back atmosphere and attitude that everyone has at KingsIsle. We have fun laughing and playing games while we do our work which makes the day go by a lot faster. I think my least favorite part about it is the commute to get to and from the office. You wouldn’t believe how much traffic a small city like Austin can build up during rush hour!

What do you think is the most challenging aspect of what you do?
I think the most challenging aspect comes from the fact that I only started playing Wizard101 and Pirate101 when I started working here. I have learned a lot in the year that I’ve been here, and there’s always something new to learn. Players always ask challenging questions, but luckily we work great as a team to get the right answers.

Do you have any advice for people who are interested in getting into the marketing/social media side of the gaming industry?
Have an open mind! We have done so many campaigns or giveaways that I would never have imagined would actually be approved, but the players have loved them. Marketing in the gaming industry has much more flexibility than in other industries I have been a part of. There are really no limitations on the ideas we can throw out there.

I want to give a huge thanks to Julia for her time! She’s awesome, and this community just wouldn’t be the same without her. Thanks for all your effort and hard work, Julia!