Empire Avenue for SEO

[Dave]

I came across Empire Avenue and wondered if anyone here is using it for SEO?

It's a kind social media site that mirrors the stock market. You build a profile by connecting all your other social media networks (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, etc.) and other people can then buy into you. Depending on how active you are on your social media networks, your value rises and people who have invested in you receive dividends.

It's all virtual and up to this point it seems more like a game. But it becomes interesting, because with the money you earn you can pay other people to do missions on your behalf. For example, retweet something for you or like your facebook page.

I've signed up and am trying it out now. Anyone got any experience/thoughts on this?

[cash ninja]

I've not tried (or heard of it until now) so thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'm going to investigate it and see if there's any benefit to it.

I've used something along similar lines, although it's a slightly different concept, called https://www.socialexchangeit.com/ where members earn credits (seeds) for watching each others you tube videos, Facebook liking things, etc. These seeds can then be used to encourage others to do the same for your content. I haven't found it to be very effective so far, I might get an additional 4 or 5 views on a video, for example but that could just be because I'm not offering a large enough incentive for people to watch them?

[crabfoot]

I've not tried (or heard of it until now) so thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'm going to investigate it and see if there's any benefit to it.

I joined so I could look around and Cash Ninja bought shares in me! Honest, mate, I'd flog 'em ...

PDSTEIN's blog looks like it might be useful to beginners on Empire Avenue. Mind you, he bought shares in me, too. No accounting for taste ...

[cash ninja]

Yes, I'll admit, I did it. It seems like a bit too much of a time sink to me, I'm not sure how much actual value there is in it but I think I'll stick with it for a bit and see if there's any real benefit from it.

That blog makes for interesting reading and I thought it was quite telling that 'veteran EAvers' as he describes himself are already offering their services for money to promote newer sign ups...

[Dave]

I've signed up a few days ago and am also testing the waters. Might invest in cash ninja, not sure about crabfoot though
Will report back too.

[DomainNameNinja]

Sounds interesting. I'm in. Might be a good way to attract new eyes. Besides I'm tired of my current video game, lol.

Edit: My name is too long >.< I am domainninja there.

[DomainNameNinja]

Well I just invested about 4 hours time in this site. As far as SEO goes, you get a profile link and additional social juice if you promote your own posts/shares with their "missions". I've seen other sites that were passingly similar but this has a unique twist. I am going to try and capitalize on the benefits of the extra social exposure and what SEO value may or may not come will just be icing.

[DomainNameNinja]

So after 24 hours, some data:

Stock share is 32.99e - dividends .21e - net worth 746,209.64 - 72 in my portfolio - 117 shareholders

I was featured on the top users blog post for good first day: http://empireav.wordpress.com/2013/0...s-mar-20-2013/

which I think accounts for the decent shareholder volume

__________________________________________________ ___

Now that said, here is the value I've received. I added my blog to my profile - it wont complete the connection until 5 people endorse you. It happened overnight. I looked this morning and I had 15 endorsements and I hadn't made any effort to promote it. The good part comes when I looked at my blog traffic. I had 13 unique IPs referred by EA and 32 page views. 13 people who were interested enough to read a couple posts.

Incidentally I've also picked up a few twitter followers, got two @mentions and found a contest I wanted to enter hehe. Will update again in a few days.

Anyone else have results?

[cash ninja]

I've been added to a few circles on G+, picked up perhaps one new twitter follower but not seen a huge increase in traffic to the couple of blogs that I have added, mind you, they are very specific (ones about my kart racing and the other is my band promotion site) and may not be ideally targeted at the users on there.

I've currently got 103 shareholders with 32 in my portfolio and I think I also got a mention in that blog post. I am now at a point where I can run some missions for people to encourage them to interact with my content, just need to decide what to do.

So far, from what I have seen, this has a far greater user base than the social exchangeit site I mentioned earlier and therefore provides a better chance to get more eyeballs on content. I suspect the 'game' aspect encourages people to get more involved in the site.

[Dave]

My shareprice is also over 30 now, which means I can set up some missions and see what those do, probably will try to get some RTs or Facebook likes. I'm adding networks one by one. Started with Twitter, then added Facebook the next day, then Flickr, next will be a blog. Compared to other users I'm not very active socially, so will be interesting to see what happens in the slightly longer term.