How can you become the 800-pound gorilla in the social media cocktail party? (Image courtesy of Wikipedia.)With so many social media hints, tips, tools, and apps it’s tough to keep focus. Should you tweet today or focus on Facebook? Maybe you should post on Linkedin, or Google Plus? Sometimes it just seems too much and you end up doing nothing.

So how do you become the 800-pound gorilla in the social media cocktail party?

Empire Avenue is a great way to motivate yourself while building your social media audience and increasing your influence.

Essentially, Empire Avenue simulates a stock market, in which you buy and sell shares in other users. It’s pitched as a game, but it is far more powerful. Unlike Farmville or Battlestar Galactica, it’s not just about playing for the game’s sake. By playing, you expand your social media connections and increase your engagement. The payoff? You start to rise in rankings in other social channels. For more info, check out the Wikipedia article.

Business and brands can benefit by incorporating Empire Avenue into conventional step-by-step strategy. It also has simple metrics that enable you to gauge the effectiveness of your social media efforts.

Right now, Empire Avenue is the best attempt at gamification of social media activity. It’s free and has been open to the public since July 2010. I had stopped playing Facebook games since they just seemed like a time sink, and I didn’t see a whole lot of benefit. So I was a bit reluctant to start Empire Avenue — uncharacteristically, since I’m usually an early adopter.

Empire Avenue gamifies social media engagement.
But pretty soon after starting the game, it has worked for me. Here’s a screenshot of my Klout score since I started playing Empire Avenue. It went from a little over 48 to more than 51 in less than a month. This may not seem like much, but each incremental increase in your Klout score is exponentially harder to get, so it is significant.

 Roger Harris’s Klout score impacted by Empire Avenue activity.

So if you want to increase your social media influence, Empire Avenue is a fun and interesting way to do. And you can find me there of course. http://www.empireavenue.com/rharris

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