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Up until yesterday, I had been planning on writing about the fact that I was focussed on my shareprice and not on my wealth.  I really had not given much thought to developing a strategy maximize my dividends earnings.  Then, a funny thing happened.  Yesterday, I topped the earnings charts.  Given that I had not focused on this, I was definitely surprised.  My key to my earnings was not nearly as obvious as my dividend payouts.

To create dividends for others, you must be active networking on the site and through your connected social media.  That’s why my dividend payouts to my investors are high.  The fact that the dividends I am receiving are also high means I have invested in people quite active on Empire Avenue.  Again, I had not set out specifically to do this, but another one of my strategies had this happy side effect.

I have written previously about how you want to buy from those that are active and sell those that are not.  I was focussed on their share price in this regard. However, their dividends are even more effected.  So, you will get a double financial benefit in supporting active members.  However, people’s activity levels are not the only thing that will effect how much you receive in dividends.

The system calculates how active someone was and awards them a total dividend value.  You will receive a piece of this pie.  How big your piece is depends on what percentage of the total outstanding shares you own in that person.  This is called Dividend Percentage in the portfolio listing.

These percentages is where things get interesting.  As far as I can tell, someone new can basically make the same activity earnings as someone on the top of the leader board here.  I haven’t seen change in my activity credits in the time I have been here.  However, someone new might have a thousand shares bought by other people (outstanding) while someone atop the leader board might have 12,000 shares sold to others.  If you owned 100 shares in each case, you would get 10% of the dividends of the new person, but only 0.8% of the dividends of the more established person.

So, when it comes to dividends, two strategies are called for.  First, invest in people with proven activity records on the site.  (People like me.)  However, you also need to be looking for new arrivals that seem serious about Empire Avenue.  New arrivals are riskier, but there payouts will be much higher for you when you pick a winner (not to mention the return from a rising share price).  

Dividend payouts are the third way to make money.  First, you collect achievement credits, then you make money when the share prices of your investments rise. Next, you need to make sure you are taking advantage of that third way. By balancing your portfolio with proven veterans and promising rookies, you can join me at the top of the Earnings Leader Board.