News, events and analyses

One Easy Way to Turbo-Charge Your Social Media Influence

Roger — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 02:37:52 +0000

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

I'm back!

Roger — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:41:58 +0000

“I’ll be back” Those immortal words are perhaps the most famous of Arnold Schwarznegger’s acting career. (Even meriting its own Wikipedia entry!)

Could social media monitoring have predicted and helped avert Egypt's crisis?

Roger — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:42:05 +0000

Much of the press coverage of Egypt’s present meltdown has concerned the influence of social media. Organizers used Twitter, Facebook and other channels to get out their message and instigate a popular uprising.

Foursquare versus Facebook Places

Roger — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 15:34:36 +0000

Geolocation services may not make money this year according to a Forrester report. That does not mean they’re dead in the water. Adoption rate is key. The question is will the advantages of geolocation outweigh security concerns. My guess is no. A few instances of stalkers following people to rob their empty homes for example, won’t deter millions from sharing their whereabouts with their social networks. As for Foursquare versus Facebook Places, I think Foursquare may rise to the occasion. Twitter didn’t disappear when FB introduced status update feeds. With FB places you have to navigate to it inside the FB app, whereas Foursquare is a dedicated app. And FB Places doesn’t have as good or established a reward system as Foursquare. FB is not going to rule the world just yet!

QR Codes for fun and for profit* - ideas and benefits for small businesses

Roger — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 16:06:09 +0000

Pundits and prognosticators are touting QR codes as a “big thing” for this year. I noted the possibilities more than two years ago. The price of being ahead of my time, I suppose.

Could social media monitoring have prevented Arizona shooting tragedy?

Roger — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 15:46:21 +0000

We’re all saddened by the tragic events in Arizona last weekened. Of course, media pundits have been busy assigning blame. And politicos have been equally busy fending off any patina of guilt.

FritoLay SunChips packaging debacle: A lesson in when not to listen to your customers?

Roger — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:17:08 +0000

SunChips is well-known and to some beloved brand produced by food giant FritoLay (a subsidiary of PepsiCo).

Does Coke "get" Twitter?

Roger — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 14:01:22 +0000

Last week, Marketing Pilgrim’s Frank Reed posted a thoughtful analysis of Twitter’s recent foray into advertising.

Twitter’s advertising platforms are indeed headed into uncharted territory.

Is Apple's Ping a Facebook-killer?

Roger — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:09:20 +0000

Blogger Jesse Stay just wrote a thoughtful post about Apple’s launch of Ping its music social platform for sharing music.

Just announced by the company’s CEO Steve Jobs, Ping is a social application

Video killed the cartoon star: Disney's social media disaster

Roger — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:34:27 +0000

I just love those classic cartoons. You know, Roadrunner, Sylvester the Cat, and, of course, Disney’s famed cast of characters.