What the Heck is Empire Avenue?

Neal Schaffer: 0:00

take take take take enjoyment. Welcome to Social Business unplugged, helping you understand in plain English how to best leverage social media for your business. And now, here's the founder of windmill networking. Neal Schaffer. Greetings, everybody this is Neal Schaffer and welcome to another episode of social business unplugged. Today I want to talk about Empire Avenue. Now Empire Avenue is what I would call a niche social network, I actually blogged about why niche social networks like Empire Avenue, I guess SlideShare would be another sort of niche network. Obviously, Google Plus Pinterest and Instagram are examples of niche networks that have now become what I would consider major social networks. So focusing in on Empire Avenue. First of all, what is Empire Avenue, basically, Empire Avenue, is a social network. And it is also a game. And it is unique in that it is a game based on a stock market in which users which could be brands could be people actually buy and sell shares in other social media users or brands, your own brand has a stock price attached to it, which goes up and down according to supply and demand. And you also have a dividend, which both gets paid to your shareholders based on your social media activity, as well as all the investments that you have, you receive a daily dividend from their social media activity, which allows you to buy more shares. So really what Empire Avenue users are doing. It's obviously social networking, it's meeting new people, there are communities within Empire Avenue where people are chatting, and there are people who play it to sort of want to come out on top. And that's probably that's describes the way that I play it. But from a social media marketing perspective, why should Empire Avenue matter? Well, the size of empire Avenue is not great. There's no official number, but I'm going to put the total number of users of empire Avenue in total at about 50,000, somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000. So compared to the 10s, or 20s, or hundreds of millions of users that other social networks have it's small, however, because it's based on social media activity, and it's really the only game out there based on social media, if you think about it, and therefore it attracts a lot of very, very active social media users. Now, interestingly enough, two of its flagship users used to be Robert Scoble. And Chris Pirillo, these guys have recently sort of moved on to Google Plus. And I think when Google Plus emerged, it was right when Empire Avenue was getting a lot of momentum. And I think Google Plus actually sort of hurt that, in some ways, not that Google Plus is a game. Getting back to the point of empire Avenue, Empire Avenue is interesting for social media marketers, and that it gives you a chance to engage with people in a very, very different way than you can on other platforms. And let me give you an example. Scott Mani, right head of social media Global for Ford was also at one time inactive Empire Avenue user, when you have shareholders, you can actually send a shareholder mail. So he actually posted an announcement about a share a physical actual shareholders meeting that was happening for actual physical shareholders of Ford Motor that was going to be taking place somewhere in the United States, just by replying, I had a chance to engage with Scott Mani a lot easier than I could on any other social networking platform. Because there's obviously a lot of noise on Twitter, you know, Google Plus gives you the opportunity as well, LinkedIn as well. But obviously, because of all the activity there, it's sometimes hard to get heard above the noise with Empire Avenue. If the person you want to engage with is a daily Empire Avenue user, it's guaranteed that that person is checking in every day. And in fact, compared to a Twitter or Facebook or Google Plus, or maybe comparable to a Facebook or Google Plus, they are checking in on a daily basis, often religiously, and I know from my own experience, and from others that I know that are active users that we are as well. So the question is, is your target audience on Empire Avenue. And that's something that without you going on there and actually looking doing some searches for people or for brands, you don't know but if they are on there, and if they are fairly active, which you can see by actually going to their profile and seeing how many Empire Avenue network activities they have for the week, every time you comment, or buy or sell or you know, what have you accounts as one activity, get the sense for who is active and who isn't active. So heart of what a lot of social media marketers try to achieve is amplification of their content and Empire Avenue in addition to all this, giving you a new way to engage to create brand awareness and a community of very, very active social media users. Empire Avenue also gives you the ability to create what we call missions. Now missions are basically a Call to Action. It's a call to action using the virtual currency that empire Avenue has, which allows you to buy other people's stocks. It's called Eve's, as an empire Avenue EA V initials es es. And with missions, you can actually call on your shareholders to support you. The support can be for a lot of different reasons. Maybe your brand has a new campaign, and you want your shareholders to help amplify that campaign to their community, perhaps you have a new blog post that you would like to see more traffic on in hopes that more of these heavier social media active users will actually share that post it cetera, et cetera. I think if you join Empire Avenue, and you take a look at what sort of missions are out there, you get a feeling for what is possible in terms of contents amplification for your brand and essence. Now, there are people who game I mean, Empire Avenue in itself is a game and there are those who game social media and without a doubt, you're gonna see some of that when you start looking at the missions. But it's a pretty fascinating world. It's a world similar to a few years ago, when you saw or heard about a few people controlling 99% of digs or what have you. You know, Empire Avenue definitely has part of that. But I'll tell you, there's also a lot of brands that are very active on Empire Avenue, doing shareholder missions engaging. I know Intel and Nokia are two of the ones that stand out in my mind. And if you haven't joined it, or you've been curious about it, you really should check it out. According to the instructions I just gave you check out the missions and basically buy stock in those that you want to engage with. I'm on Empire Avenue. My ticker is Neal Schaffer, which is NA al sch FF er, hopefully if you buy me I'll be more than happy to invest it to you as well. Mutual reciprocity and social media what have you but anyway, that is a another edition of social business unplug. Hope you enjoyed it. If you like it really hope that you'll give me a comment or rating in iTunes and help spread the love. Thanks, everybody. Make it a great day. Bye bye. You've been listening to social business unplugged with Neal Schaffer, social media author, consultant, speaker and university professor. If you'd like any specific topics covered on future episodes, or if you'd like to be interviewed for this podcast, please connect with me by email, Neil at windmill networking.com on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/neal Schaffer and on Twitter at Neal Schaffer. Please also visit windmill networking.com for daily Social Media for Business updates. Thanks for listening and make it a great day.