Friday, October 12, 2012

Empire Avenue - Social Media Stock Market Game

So I happened across Empire Avenue yesterday - some two years after it went live (where have I been)?! After getting slight addicted to it yesterday and scratching the surface of some of its features I thought I'd write up some findings!

The purpose is evidently to "have fun" after all its a game. People "buy" stocks in your and you in others - depending on your Social Network reach and influence your stock goes up and down and you earn or lose Eaves (the virtual currency). So far so good fairly straight forward, but its not just a game is it?!

No its not JUST a game, the most intriguing feature for me, certainly for a Social Media Impact point of view is the Missions tab. This is where users (or businesses) can set up a reward scheme (payment in Eaves generally) for you taking some action. The actions are generally quite straight forward such as "Like my page" on Facebook or "Follow me on Twitter" or retweet such and such. Now whilst this isn't necessarily going to create long standing stalwart followers or indeed a sustained growth - it lends itself nicely to Brand/Product promotion endeavours.

If you need to "get the word out" setting up a mission and getting people to post and/or tweet about whatever it is will certainly have a halo effect and get your product/service in front of peoples eyes - and hopefully the more eyes see it the better the chance that they will convert to sales.

In summary Empire Avenue is Fun but it definitely has potential as a bona-fide marketing tool/technique in the right circumstances.

In a completely un scientific test I noted that on the day I joined EA my blog got twice the hits it does on any other normal day - whether this is sustained or not is unknown - its only been 24 hours after all!

Further info can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_Avenue

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