It’s not politeness that I’m after here so zip it until I’m done.
Thank you.
The line of thought or ideal that I’m at odds with today is the position of players on Empire Avenue (EAv) who feel that is their duty, almost to the point of moral imperative, to please their shareholders at all costs. Who cares if they sell you, you already spent their money!
“Oh but when people sell my shares my price goes down!”
So what?
Unless you’re the quasi-celebrity mogul of a social media empire *cough* Pirillo *cough* you are not likely to going to have any legitimate aspirations of leading that particular statistical category on EAv. Time to get real and be honest with yourself. Identify what your real and tangible goals are in the social stock market game.
O.k., now that you’ve picked yourself up off of that bar stool and wiped your salty tears from the rim of your pilsner, let’s get down to the realities of stock ownership; why we sell stock and, more importantly, why we buy stock.
This will come as a huge surprise to you but share transactions in Empire Avenue are in NO WAY different than following someone in Twitter or circling them on Google+.
What you say?
There are two (2) reasons to follow someone on any social network:
1. You like them. You’re either interested in them as a human being (their friendship, their expertise, or even their celebrity) or you are interested in their content. In any case this is the entire point of social media.
2. You’re trying to game something. Be it Klout score or Empire Avenue dividends or WHATEVER you are only interested in gaining something by making that connection.
Do you want to hear something that will really bake your noodle? If the bulk of your connections fall into that second category then you are probably very frustrated that your dividends aren’t where you think they should be and your share price isn’t going to be either.
Back to the topic of buying and selling. If you have decided that you are going to sell stock on EAv or clean up your Twitter stream where do you think those cuts are coming from? If you’re selling contact #1 then I’m sorry but you’re an idiot. Person number one is far more likely to respond to your posts, retweet your witty commentary, share your cat photos AND refer you to their friends who would also like your posts, your witty commentary, and yes, even your cat photos.
But… but…
No, you’re an idiot.
Given the math explained in previous posts we know that user interaction accounts for roughly 70% of the formula used when the Empire Avenue Market Makers calculate how much they are going to pay your shareholders each night. But wait, what attracted those shareholders in the first place? See 1 and 2 above. If your share holders fall into category #2 then THEY are idiots and again, you’ve already spent their money so who cares if they sell your shares or unfollow you?
In a nutshell, the concept of ROI in Empire Avenue is ludicrous. If you are a #2 and you are only buying and selling to other #2′s you are only laying shingles on your own glass ceiling (it’s a compound metaphor, live a little). Buy up, sell down. Buy good contacts who enjoy your content and engage with you on a regular basis, sell the Jane Fonda’s and spammers.
So what really matters?
Here’s an example.
Let’s say we have two stocks, a Type 1 player that we’ll call “Ms. M” and a Type 2 player that we’ll call “Mr. S”.
Ms. M - Her price is 175e/share and her divs are 1.30e/share – she leaves you 2 tweets, 3 comments, and 5 likes every day, endorsed all your blogs and bought 50 of your shares. She is also and established blogger and networker so you are probably going to blow your wad on Ms. M and lay down the 110,250 to max out here shares in your portfolio.
Mr. S – His price is 289e/share – and his divs are an astounding 2.30e/share. You created lists in Twitter just to avoid his 50 tweets an hour promoting his SEO startup, hounded you every day for 3 weeks until you bought as many of his shares as he bought of yours, and then sold you the next day.
Pretty obvious who is going to give you a better return, no? Why would you buy the #2 stock, that you know deep down in the sub-cockle regions of your heart, that you’re going to get sick of and eventually sell?
Think like a shareholder when you buy and stop thanking your shareholders for buying and holding you! They buy your stock because it benefits them a LOT more than it does you. You spent their money, now work on the relationships!
The data is all there, the point is made. Now it’s up to you to dislodge your brain from the inane ROI concepts running rampant and start ENJOYING the time you spend online. Produce your content and be a quality contact.
The sky’s the limit.
OK, for that one, I will buy your shares again at top dollar.
The sky’s the limit… except for divs then… (since EAv numbers depend more from quantity/productivity rather than content quality).. correct?
The opposite. Divs are 30% what you do and 70% how people respond to them. IE 1 facebook post that generates 10 comments and 10 likes is worth more than 8 FB posts with one comment and 1 like each. (just as an example, not indicative of actual EA activity values.)
To summarize, 1 contact who interacts with you and your content is worth more than 3 people who only give decent divs.
Ouch! My toes are bloody where you steeped all over them!
I keep asking myself why I play this game and put time into EA. Ultimately, I feel I’ve met some people that I like and think are fairly smart. I want to learn from those folks and engage with them. But it still smarts when people sell you…I have to remind myself it’s not personal and this is not a contest to see who is Prom King and Queen!
Ps. Stepped not steeped!
very clear (now) – thanks for your time and great info :)
Feel enlightened knowing that a sale doesn’t reflect poorly because they aren’t really taking anything away, they didn’t really give you anything to start with, and take joy in knowing that they will eventually return and spend a WHOLE lot more than they did the first time to connect with you.
Remember: success is the best revenge!
Well put Ryan – engagement and quality!!
It all makes sense. I might have to save this post for my teen son to learn from – those on the autism spectrum are literal thinkers. I have a growing list somewhere of all the idioms I run across to share with him.
I thought people thanked their shareholders for the eav activity.
Yeah, relationships. Do I get points for being both #1 and #2? Is that a special YAI category? I can live with split personality. Bottom line, you share the truth.
In building the empire over time, I find you need one to afford the other. If you don;t invest in some of the better and consistent DIV producers, you can’t afford to “invest” in some of the average scoring players. Relationships are 80% better when you invest with the intention of “meeting” someone and being connected. however, even those people die down on sincere retweets, blog comments, Flickr comments or Facebook action. At some point, everyone does.
I think it takes both types in a portfolio to make it worth my time, but I’m a gamer and a networker. My extra time goes to giving back to those that I like and would have over for chat and cocktails if we lived near each other. Thanking the shareholders is both a gaming action and a common courtesy. I do it to keep some kind of relationship going even if its just because they are telling me they bought shares. They sure as hell don;t write me when they sell, LOL!
Question for you RJZ: Is there any real EA value to posting on people’s walls anyway? Seems to me there are people with very large numbers for EA score actions and I’m sure that includes both the Thanks/I bought you posts and community conversations.
Bonnie, some people do ;)
Staying Zipped after you’re done! Nothing more to add! Amen!
Down to Earth has gotten a new meaning. By means of Ryan. Love your reviews mate :)
Yes!!!!!! Well Stated! Great Post Ryan! Empire Avenue does not have to be a big production. It’s an OUTSTANDING tool when used correctly. No hurries. No worries. No stress! I just long for the day when Empire Avenue raises the number of stocks one can own to let’s say…10,000 so that I can continue buying and holding both #1′s and #2′s because I will eventually own you all! =)
Thank you for your investment Ryan:)
Fav quote: “sell the Jane Fonda’s and spammers”
EAv probably still needs both types of players – maybe even more of the number 1s right now. EAv also needs people who can help the number 2 types learn how to engage people properly, sort of an EAv Social Media 101 and forget about trying to game the ROI – you don’t win influence you earn it. Good article, Ryan I really appreciate your point of view.
Astute!
Value in the relationship or value to EA? In some ways both but from what I understand no, EA only gives you credit to posts you make on your own wall. I don’t know if that includes the comments and likes etc.
The meat of that question, which I think was the point of my post, is are you posting because you’re social and want to reach out and connect with someone or are you posting because you want to boost your scoring? In the long run I think if you’re being social it will benefit your EA account more than what little activity spam posting with high diminishing returns would yield for you because that connection will likely respond to you across multiple SoMe platforms.
Thanks Tess, this post was really geared toward improving the social skills of the #2′s moreso than restating what the #1′s already know =)
Clever observations. Makes me even happier with my decision to have a break from the avenue for a while! Now I can treat all my social media contacts as category 1.
Well done =)
I think each player in Empire Avenue has a different goal. For me, it is a game and a social media performance tracking / experiment tool. In the end, yes, make connections too and support their causes (like making donations, etc.).
Hey Ryan, so just to be clear you’re saying
a) Invest in people who you genuinely engage with and who genuinely engage in others (rather than investing in people who are just trying to pump up the EAv and social media scores.
b) Be a person who produces good content and genuinely engages with others.
Is that right?
If so, I totally agree, except for one problem…
Nobody can be a Ms M to all their shareholders on EAv. Even the most engaged, thoughtful person can’t read, like, and/or share even one content item from each shareholder each day. And likewise, I can’t invest in a Ms. M and expect her to like/share/comment my content every day.
Don’t you think the reality of EAv is that due to time constraints we can only be a #1 for a limited number of people and for everyone else we’re just an investment, and similarly we can only have a limited number of #1s in our portfolio and then the rest of our portfolios will be made up of people who are just an investment?
“1 contact who interacts with you and your content is worth more than 3 people who only give decent divs.” => Brilliant !!! Thanks, Ryan.
Provoked thought. Thank you. Enjoy the game.
Hey Ryan,
Allthough I found this article only now, I still would like to respond and maybe keep the discussion going.
You make some really great points here which I think everyone including myself agrees with on a broad level, but I do see a couple of practical problems that I believe everyone will face sooner or later.
1. Your model would assume that the amount of people you interact with would have to grow indefinitely. However several researches have shown that the number of people one can interact with in a meaningful way on a regular basis is limited to about 300 people.
Compare that to having 1500 FB friends +1000 friends on G+, following thousands of people on twitter, and having shares in over 500 people.
It can’t be done realistically to maintain individual interaction will all of these and one will inevitably find oneself with a growing network (friend requests etc.) for which one realistically has no bandwidth available.
What do you do after you reach that point?
2. Gaming something does not have to be a negative thing if it is done in a proper way. I think it is fair to say that a gaming element adds value to the experience of any activity itself and has proven to have a positive effect on an individual’s engagement level, so there is nothing wrong with that in and of itself.
Having that said I Empire Avenue provides a platform where a lot of different people are ‘gaming’ it in a lot of different ways. I for one find it interesting to see the different strategies being used.
3. Return on investment on Empire Avenue is just a number. But Return of Investment can be a lot of other things as well as you pointed out that for you it may mean retweets or likes. For others return of investment may mean as little as having the opportunity to find new and interesting people or finding some cool new content one can share locally with friends and / or colleagues, or even just earning Eaves in a social stock exhange where investing is, after all, the name of the game.
Cheers & keep rocking it,
Tim
Nice read and good points to consider but somehow an idealistic viewpoint. In the end you can only deal with a very few people and that wouldn’t do for enough div-cash to promote your goal.
Let’s face it: you can’t do without producing spam, running fake accounts or blogs and liking stupid content at EA. Except you’re the guru who produces invaluable content on a daily base. Or have you ever seen an honest comment on crappy content? You wouldn’t need missions if your content were so brilliant.
Anyway. Your point are well to keep in mind if only for sheer self-respect.
People with crappy content aren’t supposed to do well. That’s the entire point. I invite you to check out my profile, my missions, and my social media streams for reference =)
I’m new to EAVE, but I treat it like I do every one of my networks. My goals are engagement with industry influencers, and promotion of my goods and services.
To which point, I don’t believe influencers will take my twitter stream seriously if I follow for follow, and blast unrelated material through my stream. That’s not to suggest I don’t promote my friends, that’s how business is done, but that said, my social networks reflect how I conduct business.
As I read it, Eave is a model built on reciprocity, via social currency. For that reason, if I do a mission for a 1,000 eaves, and like bomb someones page, I don’t expect them to like bomb me back. Indeed, I’ve already pointed that out to others who say they will return the likes. NOOOOOO…. the exchange is simple. Mission = eaves. Onto the next mission.
On which point, it amuses me to read people wringing their hankies, pleading with missionistas to be honest. For goodness sake, in every activity there is always an attrition rate. Get over it, some people are new and make mistakes, and others don’t blink as they take the money and run.
That said, most people are very generous and willing to engage and share with you.
Just let’s be realistic about our expectations.
Couldn’t agree more =)
“aren’t supposed to do well……???” That’s the question to answer. Well in terms of what? I very much agree with you and your reference ;-) but this is kind of a positive exception one should strive for but seldom reaches.
I don’t mind to deal with an only human little cheating. But if it were not for the way too exaggerated longing to stand out the whole SoMe indulging can only be called ludicrious.
Don’t tell me your not spoiling time for the sake of promotion! Promoting what? Promoting the promotion business to promote promoting? That’s the reason folks lose track on real life and go for “scores”.
EA is no exception in pushing the hype of SoMe. And limit your horizon. Because you are supposed to be a nice guy and not stirr things up with serious matters. You only “make it” at EA staying away from no-go topics.
And that’s ok with me. I accept these limits. But I clearly see it as a tool which asks to bite some bullets. A time consuming, instructive and often fun tool. But in the very end a tool I want to get the most out of for my time spent on it. And it’s not about connecting with people, it’s about getting leads and monetiesing.
The marvell of EA lies in the huge possiblities for everyone to play the game. All I’m saying is that those who use it as a business tool have to cheat. Well, they do as a matter of fact in my terms. And we should not talk as if they were not. No way they stick to Ms M, they have to be #2.
I just think it’s funny that I’m the opposite of everything you say and I seem to do alright =p
I very much agree, that’s how it is.
Great post Ryan. I’ve only been on Social Empire for 2 1/2 months. After the first month of trying to find my way and reading tons of advice on the best way to play, I had an aha moment. I realized it really didn’t matter how anyone else played the game, even the power players. It only mattered what my own goals were and what I really wanted to accomplish with the time I spent here.
Pretty much what you said at the end of your blog above.
Once I had that realization I started really enjoying being here and the time I was investing. I also stopped worrying about whether I was buying/selling the right/wrong players or what missions I should do because they payed the highest eaves. It was liberating and took away all the stress.
For me, the value has been in the amazing connections I have made, and the fact it’s helped me enrich my engagement on all my other social channels. Even some of my Twitter and Facebook followers/friends have noted how much more engaged I am. Why? Because of the inspiration I have received from the players here on EA.
I do still make an effort to thank everyone who invests in me. Not because I want to stay on their good side so they don’t sell me, but because of my upbringing and hard core Midwest values. That’s just who I am. I still thank servers in restaurants for refilling my iced tea or people who hold the door for me. Some habits are hard to break.
Thank you for taking the time to share this very valuable information.
~Karen