What is Social Currency?

So a week ago, I started out with intention of doing a series on Social Currencies. Then I realized that depending on your perspective, the way I wanted to talk about Social Currency didn’t really work.

This concept of currency within the economy of social interaction is really a much smaller concept within a book I’m writing about how small businesses gain the upper hand online through the leverage of resources.

But I digress. Here’s the point.

Before we can start talking about social currency we have to discuss what exactly is.

A currency is the prevalent item or unit that can be taken universally by anybody in a given economy for goods or services, in that same economy.

That is  an acceptable definition but first to apply it here we must agree that we have a social economy, meaning that we have a structure where, things of value are being exchanged, whether for personal use or for business.

So. for example, I could give you my trust. Until I give that trust to you, even in a limited capacity, I won’t give your business my email address unless I’m a fool, or I fully trust the laws that protect me if you abuse it.

In return for my trust, I have to get something back that is worth not just the risk of getting burned by you or a third party that hacks your server, but the act of opening a line of communication itself.

Another definition of currency is any form of value exchange that can be circulated within an agreed economy. In order for one to get another unit of value back, I offer a unit of value.

Of course, in a value exchange it’s all about the perception of value. Money itself isn’t static.

Even though were not on the gold standard anymore we do have comparisons between different countries and economies as far as what a certain currency’s value is here. The value of the dollar against other world currencies is different than it was ten days ago, ten years ago even, and not the same as it will be in ten years.

So this is also an accepted definition for our purposes, given that what we’re trying to do is to get relative value.

I may give you a technique for increasing your visitors that brings you $1350 worth of traffic, for $100 because I know the relative value of you learning it yourself versus paying me to do it.

Or maybe having you as a future lead is worth a loss of $1250 in potential revenue to me, perhaps I value you as a client over a lifetime at least that much.

Relative value.

Next, we’re going to talk about the criteria I measured each component of social currency against in order to determine their usefulness to you as a business person. Then we’ll jump right into the series with an overview of the first social currency.