After Newbie Row

There have been a few posts out today about how to get jump started on Empire Avenue, getting your profile done and taking advantage of being on the Newbie board. My fave of course being from (DLB) You can catch it here. 

So now what? Well, you more than likely haven't been here for the crazy newbie bump that was happening. People would swarm in and buy lots and lots of shares in the new people, get their stock to rise and then sell them. This gave you lots of eaves to play with, but wasn't great for morale.

I will let you in on a secret. I started Empire Avenue about 2 days after the friends and family reset. No one had any money. I wasn't  even getting 50 share buys. It was 5 and 10 share buys all over. I couldn't really use Twitter yet. I had pretty much no twitter followers, no blogs, just a Facebook. And I climbed the boards. And I did it with very little eaves.

 If you can find the really old posts on (JOSH)'s blog,  in the comments you will find exactly what I was doing. He was one of the first people I began talking to on here. He wasn't talking AT me like a couple people were, telling me what to do, he was conversing WITH me, debating with me on his blog while we figured out portfolio strategy and how dividends worked. We didn't even follow each other's advice. He did his thing and his stock picks and I wandered around doing my own thing. We have just hit it off since day one. 

I started exploring the site, and the people. I read their blogs, said hi, had conversations with them. I bought a few shares in the new people. I stayed away from the leader board. I couldn't afford them. 10 shares in a new person beat 1 share in a leader. Those new people were stuck too. They bought you back, they said hi and they are still the ones I talk to on my twitter, the ones I have connected with the most. 

I didn't have a huge amount of money so I spread myself out to as many circles as I could. We didn't have communities yet. I would suggest joining a couple communities, saying hi and joining conversations. Join too many communities and you don't know what is happening in any of them. 

I would also start checking out people's twitter streams when you are buying them. If a person has very few followers, they probably need some. Follow them, say hi and start a conversation. Show them around twitter and both your stocks rise. Simply following people to get followers won't help you much. Try to say hi and learn a bit about them. 

I also paid attention to what my stocks were doing, I flipped stocks, watched dividends and made my portfolio work for me. A lot of people still don't get it, but selling is part of empire avenue. Holding stocks in people is a luxury. You have to work on your portfolio a bit to make the eaves for the upgrades. 

Holding stocks and buying leaders are best saved for later. Trust me, if you are a good stock, and you are rising and making me money, I am going to buy you whether you buy me back or not. I don't even expect it. I would honestly rather you go buy 8 new people instead, get some buy backs and get your stock up than come and invest with me, go broke and get frustrated. I am making money off your stock, you owe me NOTHING. 

However, you are more than welcome to come say thank you, come check out a blog, comment on it, say hi on twitter, whatever, but don't feel you have to buy me. I am doing just fine. Making those kind of connections is honestly going to get you father up in stock price. You will get more twitter followers conversing with you, more profile views and comments, and you will appear more in the headline feed so other people will come look and see if they should be buying you too. 

I think a lot of the coverage really undervalues the connections you make on Empire Avenue, and it breaks my heart a little. It is really what I have loved the most about the site. I am interacting with so many people I never would have and learning so many things. The things you can do with it if you have a business are mind boggling. But first you have to understand it and not play it just to play it. Once you get past the game step and step into the connecting world, you have already won the game. And your stock price will reflect it.