Tag Archives: Monopoly

Your Turn: How Social Media is like a game of Monopoly

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Move your thimble! It’s your turn!

What do social media and a game of monopoly have in common? More than you think. When you play monopoly, you start out with some money, and you move around the board collecting properties. When someone else lands on your property you collect some money. You can use the money to buy more properties. But, if you land on someone else’s property, you have to pay them.

In real life in web business, you can acquire social media accounts and put money or time into getting followers on those accounts. Every time you pass go and collect $200, you get another week of time to invest in building your accounts. The problem is that in web business, whenever something on your web site(s) breaks, you have to pay the programmers big bucks which is like landing on someone else’s hotel in Monopoly.

As you go around the board, you might land on the question mark, pick up a card, and get the Go To Jail card. This is what happens when your SEO technique is something that the Google gods don’t care for.

But, another aspect that links social media and Monopoly is that you don’t acquire the entire world all at once. You develop your empire in bits and pieces. Every step along the road you have to make strategic choices and decisions. Which property do you save your money for? Do you built hotels all at once or do you wait? When do you sell your properties? How much do you save for an emergency? It is all just like real life. The only difference between Monopoly and real life is that:

(1) I am not a thimble and
(2) In real life in addition to hotels, there are resorts!