Have you ever wondered why so many people on Empire Avenue buy 1 share at a time… even several times per day? I suspect, the reason many do so is for the same reason I myself did it. But I just realized that it is not justified according to Empire Avenue documentation.
Let me explain:
One of the concerns that many have with regards to Empire Avenue is their personal “div” score. A high dividend attracts more investors. Virtual commissions from share sales increase one’s virtual net worth. So raising dividends is a good thing.
Dividends are based on network activity of the top 5 networks for a given profile. One of the top 5 networks can be Empire Avenue.
One of the details calculated by Empire Avenue is the number of “actions” aka transactions. You can see the number of actions on the bottom right for any profile. But according to Empire Avenue documentation, selling and buying is NOT part of the network score.
Regarding the Empire Avenue network and score determination as it relates to dividends, EA explains:
“Your activity on Empire Avenue, excluding the specific acts of buying and selling; user engagement with you on Empire Avenue including how they react to you, engage with you and the success of your advertising.”
Did you get that… you know… the part that says “excluding the specific acts of buying and selling”?
It is true that buying and selling can create additional engagement. When someone buys big from me, I usually respond with a shout out or maybe even a recommendation. But what I have seen is that those that buy 1 share at a time are soon nearly ignored… like a nuisance. This is contrary to a high level of EA network interaction.
So I don’t know about you… but I am going to be making less buys… but buying more at a time focusing on higher yield shares first. I’ll let you know if my EA network score gets better or worse. What do you think will happen?
What you’re overlooking is that it’s not the buy itself but the shoutout. The buy doesn’t count as an action for your divs, but I believe the shoutout does. I could be wrong, but you should check before making investment decisions based on this strategy.
The reason I buy small lots when I do is to get a lot of buy-backs from others. I’ve never tried to manipulate divs with it. I’ll quite often spend my morning eaves on 400-500 folks, spending 3000-4000 each. This triggers a shout out and many of them immediately buy back and that does drive price up.
Thanks for this intelligent contribution to the culture and strategy on Empire Avenue. I appreciate the reminder to look at tiny buys from the point of view of the seller. Buys of 1 share does seem to clutter the shout out stream and becomes a nuisance. Your post has influenced me to be more careful not to annoy my E. A. friends.
Regarding the effect on E. A. “Action,” I have the impression that “Shout Out” messages DO count, and many of us include a shout out with each buy. In fact, that is one of the main reasons I have split my investments into smaller parcels — to be noticed by more impressions. My hope is that some of my shout outs will be posted in the right place at the right time.
One of my sayings that is quotable is, “If you want to be in the right place at the right time, be in a lot of places.”
Spot on.
Doug is right. If you buy into and shout onto 500 pages, sure 2 will be annoyed but 50 will be activated. They will buy some back in the hours following.
Yet, I’m one of those two IF you buy one share and tell me about it. As many have seen, I HATE it. lol. Yet, the core of this is: your #EAv score and it’s partial effect on your divs will be great when you own shares in many stocks, and do SOME #EAv groceries a day. SOME is just perfect. I’m pretty sure the effect-difference between 1 and 20 shoutouts/interactions is bigger than the difference between 20 and 100. My #EAv score is over 50 and I do not use some buying machine gun thing. Buying shares of 500 peeps instead of 20 surely does NOT make your divs go from 0.7 to 1.0.
So, please, people, stop doing 5000 actions a week on #EAv. It’s useless. And can only be unpersonal (you can never honestly engage, reply, etc. when buying hundreds a day) and, to me clearly, annoying.
Wanna drive up your divs? Be active on 5 platforms a day. And, best, enable some true engagement on social networks. Have some real and nice talks. Don’t go looking for it. Just engage. I’ve been on 0.8 once and told someone I’d be at 1.1 within a week. I was. Just by driving more conversation, and being a dumb LIKE-clicker on Youtube on 10 movies a day.
But, looking at my stock, a 0.7 div on a 230e share works fine. People buy me, and I truly engage. It’s just real and to me it’s just perfect as it is.
Cheers!
Remco is spot on.
To me it’s not only a nuisance those 1-share-buyers, I finally mute them as I consider their contributions/SHOUT-outs as spam. So in effect on the long run their behaviour is counter-productive.
In the end . . . what does a high div really say about you unless you’re professional in SoMe ? You’ve got too much time on your hand and are potentially unemployed, a single mum at home doing ‘something’ while kids sleep or so or you’re retired . . . think about that for a second.
If on rare occasions I go in with little buys myself I only do so as a marker for bigger investments.
I’ve never really gone in for buying 1 share! I like to buy a 100 at a time – although I also like to keep my bank balance empty – so I might buy 1 if that’s all the eaves I have!
Engagement is the key – and I find it difficult to find the time for that! How people find the time to buy 1 share is beyond me – I assume they’re using a program of some sort to automatically buy, which does turn me off their shout outs!
Yes, Simon, admittedly I used a program to make a 10 share buy with an auto-shout that announced this blog post to you and 149 others (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBiCeKl-eX8). But, like you, I agree engagement is the key. I take the position that using such a program can help with time management… but you can’t automate the relationships.
My 10 share buys might be considered spammy and self serving by many. I think such a conclusion has merit. I do my best to make sure any announcements are beneficial to those that get them. I also think that Buddy Hodges comment that “If you want to be in the right place at the right time, be in a lot of places.” makes sense too. Thank you for adding to this discussion.
Buying sizeable amounts seems to be the best idea in my opinion. However, connecting with people on facebook you meet here is not a good idea, I have invited several to friend on facebook and had my account shut down for a few days and put on another one week friending block because some of the EA folk reported me for trying to connect with them. Just a warning in case you depend on facebook for connecting with a lot of business clients like I do!
Thank you, Steve, for the Facebook warning. I didn’t know they did that and just started sending more friend requests. I’ll back off a bit.
Steve, Michael,
There is a huge difference between friending and friending. Purely out-of-the-blue, merely cold inviting, doesn’t seem like a good idea indeed. Yet, I’ve got like 1000 FB friends originating from #EAv.
Yet, if you start a real convo on 1 medium, it’s way more normal, accepted and expected, that you’d be inviting someone. A text like “I just invited you to friend on FB” seems very normal when there has already been some contact. Plus, check the FB page of that person: you got 400 friends in common, or 4? A 400 tells me this person does add #EAv peeps to Facebook. A 4 tells me “no, I don’t.”
Furthermore, why would you randomly go inviting people you don’t know anyway? No wonder some will report it as spam eh. First build at least some form of contact, friendship. Through any medium. But better yet, base the FB friending on being present in #EAv-minded FB groups. Like [BEARS], the [X]bar, #SocialEmpire, Dom’s Picks, and so on. I started #EAv in May 2011, and within weeks I became friends with tens and tens of people through #SocialEmpire and others. Heavy engagement, fierce discussions. Heck, I’ve even gained real friends, have had sort of a crush on one since over a year ago, and have met some of the Dutch players: Berry Pelser, Larissa Katayeva and Ernesto (BRAT). And more recently WOEPWOEP Ronald Wopereis.
I’ve never overinvited people, and sure haven’t been blocked from inviting. I HAVE however been blocked for liking too often. Several times. FB blocked me from liking for hours. So, I propose: establish some sort of a real connection, and only then invite peeps.
Cheers!
Remco, you are wise and your advice is greatly appreciated. I found out the hard way that those icons under the name are only bragging rights for some, while for others it is a invitation to connect. I was only warning the newbies to not make my mistake, thanks, Steve
I hear ya, Steve.
You got the [X]pendapalooza thing figured out yet? I offered you my help, on your #EAv page. Guess you may have missed it. Don’t know if you figured it out already, but I’m gonna explain. And it’s pretty darn simple. I remember I wondered and thought way too deeply the first time. Here we go:
[X]penda – spending – is just a circus thing, taking like 24 hours in this case, encouraging as many players as possible, to spend. Spend spend spend. Some big chiefs have saved up 10′s of millions of Eaves. Just to spend. On who ever says hello.
So, you just go to the [X]pendapalooza 9 community page, become a member, submit your ticker to the correct thread (either 500000 shares outstanding) and that’s it.
From that point on you just spend. All [X]pendapalooza’ing people just go and take a look at the list of people posting their ticker, either in the thread, or in both, and spend Eaves on them. Shouting out some things nice after buying, preferably integrating the [X] thing in your shout.
These are all the ‘rules’ there are actually. You can submit your ticker and do nothing, or submit your ticker and go bazurk in buying. As I’m doing right now
Hope you’re getting it now. Don’t think into it too hard, it’s really this simple and no-strings-attached. Have fun!! Spend!! And with submitting your ticker and buying the sh*t out of people, you’ll…
Get bought!!
Thanks for taking the time to make it simple!!!
p.s. I wish I were wise. Thank you for your nice words though. I guess I’m just quite experienced in #EAv
Thanks again!!!
Your own worth in this virtual economy will be heavily influenced by your own activity – the more active and influential you are on your social networks, updating your status, uploading photos, writing blog posts, and so on, the more your value will increase.
The only time you’ll see me buying a small amount is when I’m “bookmarking” a stock to come back and buy later or to watch (to see if it goes up or down and by how much). Most people are catching on to this practice and leaving a shout-out reflecting that. Otherwise, the practice makes no sense, as the commissions on most buy-worthy stocks will simply eat you alive, especially when it comes to a ‘fast moving’ stock that the system hikes the commission to over 30% of the buy!
Some ‘robots’ tend to buy 1 or 2 shares at a time, and they are very annoying. The kind that I really can’t stand are the ones that trickle up to 200 and then dump your stock. I really hate those…
You’re not buying people – you’re buying into, reinforcing, and encouraging further action in “social media.”
It is my honest goal to encourage people to do better than me; unlike some users who are power-hungry, I recognize that I only win if YOU win.