If you’re bored with Facebook, you might want to check out the latest addition to the social media world: Empire Avenue. It bills itself as a “revolutionary online influence stock exchange with an advertising platform that allows individuals and organizations to convert their online influence and reach into revenue.”

A bit of a mouthful, but what it does right now is allows you to “invest” in people and websites who are part of Empire Avenue. You can buy and sell stock in websites and other site members using Eaves (Empire Avenue currency). Eaves might actually be worth more than the Euro these days (there’s an obvious similarity between the two symbols).

You can build your bank full of Eaves by performing tasks on the site such as filling out your bio, linking feeds to your sites like Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, Stumbleupon, blogs, YouTube and more. You’ll also receive dividends each morning from your investments and past day’s activity.

Achievements are awarded in Empire Avenue based on your activities. The more active you are, the more you can achieve. You will be rewarded by adding feeds, others investing in you, spreading the word about Empire Avenue, amassing levels of wealth, listing your favourite brands and interests, rating the feeds of others and much more.

There’s a lot going on in this new site already, and I suspect it could be somewhat like Facebook and Twitter in terms of its ability to consume your attention, if you’re not careful. I’ve already found it to be a lot of fun and it may also be a good way to promote your business or website in a fun and different way.

I have to give the site creators a lot of credit for the thought they’ve put into Empire Avenue. The site is still in beta and requires an invite to get in, but if you can find an invite, it’s well worth it. I’m eager to see how the site develops

Empire Avenue Tips & Advice

Empire Avenue is really a game, and when I try a new game, I’m always eager to learn winning strategies. I’m not going to profess to be any kind of investment expert, but I’ve noticed a few things that have worked in Empire Avenue so far, and some strategies I believe will work going forward.

If you’d like to amass a large amount of wealth, you need some starter capital. Empire Avenue starts you out with some Eaves (Fresh face achievement of 1500?) If you’d like to quickly build your bank, make sure to do these things ASAP:

  • Fill out your bio (picture, country, gender, location, birthday)
  • Add 50+ interests (Three keen interest achievements. If you’re stuck for interests, look at other profiles to jog your memory.)
  • Add 50+ brands (Use the same advice in interests.)
  • Add yourself to 3 categories
  • Rate 500+ items (Look for these in feeds on other profiles. Thumbs up or down.)
  • Convince people to buy at least 100 of your shares (Don’t be annoying about it. You can buy ads. Connect with people.)
  • Review Achievements you haven’t got yet (New ones are added regularly and can be easy to get.)

Once you’ve done these things, you’ll want to take your small fortune and invest it in other Influencers. Like Tony Soprano, you want to get your money “on the street” working for you. As far as I know, you don’t collect interest on Eaves sitting in your bank. You have the opportunity for capital gains (increase in share price) and dividends (period earnings based on shares) if you invest in other Influencers.

So, get to it! I did the usual thing by starting small and investing in friends. I quickly realized that you’ll want to invest in those who are prolific and active on their RSS feeds such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Stumbleupon, Flickr, YouTube, etc. Why? You can’t just go around clicking on thumbs to make money. Activity in social media is rewarded with higher share prices in Empire Avenue.

You want to make sure to invest Influencers who are active. Their share prices should remain high, increase your portfolio value and perhaps pay better dividends. You can see how active the person is by having a look at the feed on their profile. If there are few updates, they may not be so active (or on holidays).

Are they a good investment? Well, that depends. They could be a good buy if their stock price has suffered lately, but you know they’re normally quite active. Maybe they’re in hospital getting their appendix removed. That’s known as insider information and, as far as I know, there is no penalty for that in Empire Avenue. It could represent a buying opportunity.

Keep no cash

I quickly used up all my capital and put it on the street. I invested it all! The only downside is you might miss buying opportunities as more people come on to Empire Avenue. You might consider reserving a little cash for those opportunities.

Active in social media

If you look at “My Profile – Connections” you’ll read this: “Empire Avenue is all about building your online Influence empire. Building such an empire requires you to be active all over the web. As an Influencer connects more sites and services to Empire Avenue their share price, their influence and indeed, their value, will rise.”

How obvious is that? You need to post on Twitter and Facebook, share links, blog, post photos and videos, Stumble, etc. The more you do, the higher your value and the higher your stock price. More people will invest in you (hopefully they see the value) and you get a bit of a kickback when someone buys shares in you too.

It’s important to note that before any of your RSS feeds will create value for you, you will need at least five people to endorse your feed. The quicker this happens, the better it is for you (and them).

Once those feeds are endorsed, make sure to blog, post photos, videos, Stumble, etc. The web feeds on fresh new content and so does Empire Avenue. I really like this because I know I become a little complacent (lax) about new blog posts, etc, so this might spur me on to blog more and get out shooting photos and videos.

Empire Avenue Feeds

I had some difficulty adding my Flickr account. Your feed will look like this (http://api.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?id=19599223@N00) but there’s one key thing to remember: for your Flickr feed, add the verification code to the title of a recent photo. It will NOT work in the description.

I suspect almost any RSS feed you have will work. I wasn’t sure where they were in YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/AlainSaffel) or Stumbleupon (http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/alainjournalist/), but it appears that your main page address will work. Make sure to upgrade those feeds to blog status where possible.

Having more, active feeds will show investors you’re active and a valuable commodity. Hopefully you’ve actually got something decent to say too!

Empire Avenue Future

This is just a primer on Empire Avenue. I’ve increased my share value almost 50 per cent in just a couple of days by doing these things. Who knows where I’ll end up, or whether I’ll end up in the hospital getting my appendix removed, but I am hoping my share value will continue to rise.

If you’ve got some more advanced Empire Avenue investment tips, feel free to share them. I haven’t even touched on longer terms strategies such as buy and hold. Hopefully your friends understand when you dump their stock!

You can keep up to date with Empire Avenue news too.

(PS I noticed after I posted this that there’s a fairly detailed explanation on the home page when you login about how Empire Avenue works. Just go to the help tab. Yes, I’m the guy who doesn’t read the instructions first. I feel I gain a better understanding by putting things together and taking them apart several times.) :)

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