Empire Avenue: Dead End or A Road Worth Traveling? - Uwe Hook

Remember the first time you heard about Twitter Your initial reaction might have been amp8220I donamp8217t care what people have for lunchamp8221 What about Second Life amp8220Who cares about nerds with weird avatars wasting their time in a virtual worldamp8221When new platforms are introduced to us we often underestimate their real value Or we fall for it and wake up months later amp8220What was I thinkingamp8221Thatamp8217s my current dilemma Iamp8217m not sure what category fits Empire AvenueWhat is Empire AvenueEmpire Avenue is a social game As a beginning user youamp8217re valued at a set share price of around 9 amp8220Eavesamp8221 the Empire Avenue currency and your value increases as others purchase your shares as you are more involved on social platforms and also participate on the Empire Avenue platform unlocking features and getting dividends from virtual goods or ownership in other membersEmpire Avenue was founded in 2009 but started to get real attention on the Social Web just a month ago when many early adopters started to join While Klout only measures interactions on Facebook and Twitter Empire Avenue paints a more holistic social picture by connecting accounts to Facebook Twitter Flickr LinkedIn Facebook Pages and YouTubeAnother navelgazing fadLetamp8217s face it Many social platforms have turned into high school popularity contests Brands and people are busy gaming the system to have a lot of followers amp8220likesamp8221 and amp8220friendsamp8221 What they tend to forget is that popularity doesnamp8217t equal influence Itamp8217s a very loose link as loose as the tooth I just pulled out my 6year old daughter39s mouth And Kathy Sierra makes a very good point commenting on David Armanoamp8217sblogamp8220I do not think these are purely harmless pursuits for precisely that reason our focus and attention is zerosum unless everything we do is directly in service of the same goals But for too many of us focusing on building OUR social currency comes at the direct expense of other things we could be doing that would be far more useful and ultimately desirable for our usersamp8221An opportunity for brandsMany companies have joined Empire Avenue so far Intel Career Builder Lincoln Alcatel ATampampT amp8211 just to name a few I can see the benefits You find influencers and evaluate their behavior You can reward people when they buy the shares of your company You can engage in conversations with influencers You can leverage the API to tie their data into your existing CRM systemStrong arguments to join the game but the questions remain as it always should be the real question when joining a social platform Will participation in this tool increase the likelihood for people to change behavior They might just buy your shares because they want to win the game not because they want to buy your productBrands Letamp8217s waitAs always You need to have your digital house in order deliver the best most userfriendly site out there an engaging Facebook experience and a valuable Twitter stream And be a worthwhile presence on other social platforms that meet your business needs Once you feel comfortable and deliver solid ROI on all your chosen platforms you can start experimenting with Empire AvenueYou should joinWhy I donamp8217t see the immediate benefit for brands to join now I believe you should join as an individual today Set up your profile explore the site and all the functionalities Form your own opinion Nobody knows yet if Empire Avenue will turn into Twitter or Second Life You make the callAnd once you joined make sure to say hiUwe Hook is the CEO and CoFounder of BatesHook Inc wwwbateshookcom and a veteran of the advertising and marketing industry with the goal of building connections between people and brands Uwe can be reached at uwebateshookcomRead all Uwe39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at SubversionsCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerMediaBizBloggers is an openthought leadership blog platform for media marketing and advertising professionals companies and organizations To contribute contact Jackmediadvisorygroupcom The opinions expressed in MediaBizBloggerscom are not those of Media Advisory Group its employees or other MediaBizBloggerscom contributors Media Advisory Group accepts no responsibility for the views of MediaBizBloggers authors

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Empire Avenue: Dead End or A Road Worth Traveling? - Uwe Hook

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Uwe Hook

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