Empire Avenue and the value of social gaming

I first checked out Empire Avenue (empireavenue.com) more than two years ago...this was around the time Farmville dominated social activity and spawned a series of me too games. For me initially Empire Avenue was one of those games and I took to it with a gusto.

However, as with Farmville, I lost interest fairly quickly and moved on. I would occasionally visit the site and basically use up the Eaves (currency) to buy up a few shares and leave.

For the last two weeks, however, I have been back on Empire Avenue with a gusto. Somewhere along these two years, the site has discovered its mojo...for me that is the "Missions" that take place on the site. I don't really know when they launched it, but this is how it works.

• Members can launch missions that payout eaves (anything from 500e) for completion of various tasks
• These tasks range from buying Empire Avenue shares, to liking facebook pages, following on twitter, retweeting etc. In fact the range of missions launched everyday is extraordinary.
• This benefits members two ways...those in need of Eaves to extend game play find an easy way to stock up. And for the others its an easy marketing strategy.

I have used missions primarily to boost my twitter following. And the response has been good. Yeah there are a few cheats...basically members who claim the mission but do not follow, or follow for a few seconds and then unfollow again. But the honest members outnumber the cheats and I find the missions more than serve their purpose.

I have also done a few missions and apart from the rewards themselves have been able to connect with some really interesting people who share my passions. For example: one of the connects I made has developed a great AR (augmented reality) product...an area of great interest to me.

So bottom line  this is a quick and easy content marketing resource. It does not take more than 10-20 mins a day to build up a decent EA portfolio that will give you the returns you need to create your missions. Good for small businesses/individuals with limited budgets.