Using Empire Avenue

This post will provide some thoughts on how to “play” Empire Avenue (“EA”) to maximize your earnings of eaves, the EA currency.  For some, EA will be all about building the largest portfolio, the greatest net worth, and the highest stock price.  For others, like me, EA is a tool to drive the things you are trying to accomplish with their social media presence (more about that later).

1.  Of course, the first step with EA, like anything else is to sign up.  However, what you do when you sign up is important.

• Upload a photo or an avatar – people on EA will not take your seriously if you don’t.
• Add every social networking site of which you are a member.  With a photo or an avatar and multiple social networking sites listed, you will be quickly noticed on EA.

1. Once signed up, begin a little poking around, but don’t take any action immediately (I did and it was an “oops”).  You’ll notice that you are given a number of eaves upon signing up and that, in almost no time at all, you’ll have your first investor.  In fact, you will likely have 30+ investors in the first hour, particularly in the first hour.

2.  The initial reaction to all these investors is to thank them by investing in them.  This is a good strategy, but don’t buy the same number of shares in them that they did in you; rather, match the number of eaves they invest in you.  Don’t forget to factor in that there are commissions involved which, of course, impact the net prices for investments.  I made this mistake at the beginning and bought 200 shares in my first few investors only to discover that I was suddenly out of eaves.  In any event, making investments in your initial investors is a good idea, just don’t get carried away.

• If you get short on eaves, go to the missions tab and pick up some eaves easily.  Missions usually involve a RT of a tweet, a facebook like or share, a Google+ like or share, and many other variations.  Some missions give you eaves so that you can buy shares of others – this is a great to get started on building a portfolio, basically for free or at least for cheap.  For any mission you accept, follow 3 rules: 1) actually complete the mission as in don’t steal the eaves, 2) “like” the mission, and 3) add a simple comment, even “done” will suffice.  Following these rules is the courteous thing to do and helps both you and them.
• Keep active in your social networks – this helps you stock prices and the dividends that are paid out (that’s right, all shares carry a dividend based, for the most part, on your activities on EA and social networks in general).

3.  After these initial steps, it will be time to become more strategic about your investing.  In essence, people invest to either (i) build dividend income (that’s right, all investments also carry a dividend based, for the most part, on your activities on EA and social networks in general) and (ii) building profit from the investments themselves: buy low – sell high.   Personally, I combine both strategies.

• Investing for Dividends.  This would seem to be easy enough; just go invest in people paying high dividends, but you have to remember the price of the investment.  Which is better: a stock priced at 500 eaves per share with a 3.20 eave dividend per share or a stock priced at 150 eaves with a 1.20 eave dividend per share.  Do the math and you’ll buy the 150 eave stock every time.
  • When I first arrived on EA, someone took the time to provide me with a formula and told me that if it yielded a .6, then buy.  To make it easier for me to grasp, I changed the formula to yield a percentage; then, according to his advice anything that yielded a 60% or better was a good buy.  Here’s how it works:
    • Multiply the stock price by 1.05 to get a “commission loaded price.”
    • Divide the dividend amount by the commission loaded price.
    • Multiply the result by 100 to convert it into a percentage.
    • After a while on EA, I’ve decided to look for anything that yields a 70% or better result.  These are not super common, but they provide good dividends for the eaves invested.  Where do I find these?  Under the expand tab, the first grouping is leaders, click on Dividends/Share and begin your analysis.  So that I don’t spend hours and hours hunting for dividends, I put my little formula in a spreadsheet and let it do the work.
• Investing for Profits.  I’m sure that there are several strategies for doing this, but they probably all have a common goal – grab shares in a “new arrival” early on.
  • Again, over time, I’ve refined my approach to selecting an investment a bit to where I do the following basics:
    • Go to the expand tab and take a look at the recent arrivals section.
    • I normally ignore anybody without a profile photo or avatar.
    • I will look at their profile and I target someone with at least 3 social networks, including EA.
    • I also note whether they have already have begun building a portfolio.  In fact, this may trump the fact that they have only listed 2 social networks, including EA.
    • I try to stay away from people who are already priced above 18 eaves.
    • Once I have invested:
      • I always leave a “shout out” such as “Welcome to EA.”
      • I wait a few minutes and refresh until I see the price move upwards.
      • I then set price alerts at just below the then current stock price (don’t rely on EA because it always sets the lower price alert at 2 eaves below the then current stock price) and something anywhere from 5 to 10 eaves higher.
      • After the investment, I’ll watch for the price notifications that are automatically generated by EA and adjust the price alerts accordingly.
      •  For me the tricky part is deciding when to sell.  I guess I just feel like it’s somehow a personal comment when you sell shares.  In any event there are 3 scenarios in which I am likely to sell.
        • If a stock never really moves up and stays pretty close to break even or dips below cost.
        • If a stock begins to plummet.  Lots of stock climb rapidly and then drop off sharply.  If I get the sense that this is happening, I’ll be in the mood to sell.
        • If I need to raise funds to fund one of my missions.  The vast majority of my missions relate to increasing brain tumor awareness and increasing the reach of #BrainTumorThursday.  Since those goals are essentially charitable, I don’t feel as bad about selling someone off.

4.  Setting up missions on EA is the real reason I “play the game.”  Using the eaves I have built up, I can direct people to a tweet that I’d like to have them RT.  This can be a powerful tool.  The trick is to set the reward at an amount that will entice people to do what you want without wiping you out completely.  In setting up a mission, keep in mind the pricing.  The cost of a mission is the award amount multiplied by 2 and then multiplied by the number of rewards you will fund.  Thus, a mission that is available to 20 takers that has an award of 2000 eaves will cost 80,000 eaves.  The good news is that if you decide to cancel a mission, any untaken missions will be fully refunded.

I think this will give you enough information to get started quickly on EA.  Of course, all I really want you to do is make eaves and fund missions to increase brain tumor awareness and increase the reach of #BrainTumorThursday