I’m going to try to distill a few tips on how you can excel at Empire Avenue here, while hopefully breaking a bit of new ground which may not have received as much coverage in other places yet.

1. You can be very successful in Empire Avenue even without a large Social Media following.

I set up my current Twitter account only after I joined the site a couple of months ago and it is now scoring at 31 on Empire Avenue. A huge part of the success of my Twitter experiment is due to my ability and desire to build a reputation on Empire Avenue in order to see how well I could do in the game. So, you don’t need awesome klout to do well. If you have it, that’s great, but relationship building on the site itself is where the true game is played. This is because Empire Avenue weighs your on site social interaction far more heavily than other platforms. Each platform has its own individual metrics and leaderboards, but the LION’s share of your share price will come from Empire Avenue interactions.

2. Content, leadership and reach

 Some people may wonder why a retweet should be considered as more valuable than a follower or why a recommendation on LI counts more to boost your score than a connection. The reason for this is that if you have a million “followers” on a social media platform but all of them are the F4F type who couldn’t care less about what you have to say, then basically you have no true followers. On the other hand, if you have 20 followers who really like what you have to offer and are constantly RTing you, then you have a true following. That counts in the game. So, let’s look at how this principle applies within the game itself. If you start a thread in a community and it gets a lot of other people to comment on it, all of those comments show up as activity on your Empire Avenue page (as well as in the community itself). Congratulations, you’ve just become an influencer in your community and gotten points for that. If you reply to someone else’s post in a community or on their EAv page, you also get credit for that activity, but it shows up on their page as activity, not on yours. So, create content on and off site which people will like. If you spam a community, you’re likely to get ignored. If you ask an interesting question, you may well spark an interesting conversation. Be social and interested in what others have to say, and you will go far in the game.

Join communities to make connections. Some communities are more active than others. Some, you may need to invite some of your friends to join in order to knock the dust off. You can always swap out a dead community for one which is flourishing if needed, so don’t worry too much if the community you’re most interested in doesn’t seem that lively. Give it a few prods – ask what people think about a local event if you are in a location community. Ponder the consequences of the latest social media craze in the Social Media community. Well, you get the idea. Lead. You’ll get major activity and follow points for taking the initiative. Trust me.

3. Good social skills are critical:

Advice: Don’t be rude (first). In other words, don’t come into a chat room and go all off topic, insulting, spammy, etc. For full details on a few of the consequences of this behavior see this post on chat etiquette. Warning: the consequences will get quicker and more widespread and on more of a hair trigger as we take back what we consider our home. You’ve been warned. As I’ve blogged before, chat is a huge (and new) tool for us and we’d love for you to explore its value as a networking and social media tool on Empire Ave. Spam just doesn’t cut the mustard.

Instead: engage and interact. We have a facinating range of people and backgrounds represented on Empire Avenue already and generally the common thread which ties us together is that we all are (or are learning how to become) influencers in Social Media. So, be social. If you don’t know how to do that, learn quickly. Guaranteed results will follow.

4.) Watch out for hot tips.

We like to share them, it’s part of the social nature of the game. You see, if we invest time and eaves in teaching you how to become a pro quickly, your dividends and share price will rise. Which benefits us, your investors. Plus, it’s more fun when you have a sense that you’re winning by playing well with others. I’m sure there are bloodthirsty cannibals among our constantly growing membership, but since I’ve probably already sold and blocked them all, i’m not too worried personally. There are quite a few great sources for investment tips around, including the Team Zen community and the Empire Avenue Tips, Touts & Tutorials community founded by Dr. Ron Capps (e)NICHEPROF Dr. Ron also has a site up devoted to giving EAv tips, but see tip #2 above for reasons why it may behoove you to get your tips directly on EAv’s site.

5. Decide what your reasons for being on the site are and don’t lose sight of them.

Everyone has their own individual reasons for participating in Empire Avenue. Some play for fun, some hope to earn money/rewards, some are all about the networking potential, some are mildly curious but ultimately dismissive, some are total addicts. If you want to be a ruthless day trader, you’re not in it to make friends, you’re in it to win it, so don’t hesitate to sell out your stock in your mom if she doesn’t perform as well as initial indications predicted. If you want to make friends and influence people, it’s still okay to sell out your stock in your mom if she doesn’t perform. And your friends too. Just give them a heads up. Buying shares of someone can be like extending your hand in a friendly greeting or it can be the result of cold calculation of their metrics. Usually it falls somewhere between these two extremes. sometimes, they’ll extend a hand in return, sometimes not. Don’t take it personally in either case, but if someone neither acknowledges nor reciprocates on a buy, many players will file that stock away in a sell when cash is needed folder.

How a relationship grows (or fails to) after the initial buy is up to both parties. But to return to the point of this tip, if you’re on site to grow relationships with other people, opening up lines of communication is crucial. If they can’t shout out to you unless they buy your stock and you aren’t in any communities and chat, opportunies for connection are limited. So, choose your settings based on your goals on the site. In the long run, those with the highest share price (all other metrics being equal) are those who are most active and social on the site and/or those who have committed the most hours to it. So, you ruthless wheeler dealers may just have to pull the wool over our eyes and pretend to be friendly really really well. I’m hoping for your sake that it doesn’t stick. That’d be a shame.

In part two, I’ll cover the important topics of return on investment, dividends, how businesses listed onEmpire Avenue can be successful and further reading material. Stay tuned…

Tags: #sharepricejuice, #SocialEmpire, Empire Avenue, protips, social media, social networking
Categories: #sharepricejuice, #socialempire, Empire Avenue, protips, social media, social networking

This entry was posted on Friday, April 29th, 2011 at 12:12 am and is filed under #sharepricejuice, #socialempire, Empire Avenue, protips, social media, social networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.