What is Social Currency?

Think of social currency as being like a good joke. When a bunch of friends sit around and tell jokes, what are they really doing? Entertaining one another? Sure, but they are also using content – mostly unoriginal content that they've heard elsewhere – in order to lubricate a social occasion. And what are most of us doing when we listen to a joke? Trying to memorize it so that we can take it somewhere else. The joke itself is social currency.

Think of this the next time you curse that onslaught of email jokes cluttering up your inbox. The senders think they've given you a gift, but all they really want is an excuse to interact with you. If the joke is good enough, it means the currency is valuable enough to earn them a response.

That's why the most successful TV shows, websites, and music recordings are generally the ones that offer the most valuable forms of social currency to their fans. Sometimes, like with mainstream media, the value is its universality.

It is currency that we exchange with those around us as part of our everyday interactions. In other words, "social currency" is the stuff we talk about with our friends, and colleagues, and family.