Social currency is a term that is gaining popularity in the social media community, but as a concept it is not a new idea. Social currency simply refers to the value that information has when it is shared between individuals, something has a good social currency if people want to continue to share it.

A good example of social currency is gossip, people will share rumours with their friends, who in turn will share with their friends, which is why rumours can spread like wildfire. But the key to understanding social currency is to understand the psychology behind sharing, why do people want to share? Ultimately people share when it benefits them, when they get some personal value out of sharing. The single most important component of social currency is personal value.

Basic human needs

Personal value itself is typified by fulfilling two basic human needs, the need to belong and the need to feel significant.

Humans are social beings; we are compelled to identify ourselves as belonging to groups of similar people. This need to belong is the most important element of personal value – people share content to show that they belong to a certain group of people. People will join groups on Facebook to show that they belong, quite literally, to that group of people. Just as people will tend to dress themselves according to quite specific social groups, the things we share and advocate are just another way of identifying ourselves with a group.

Within these groups individuals want to feel valued in that group; they want a feeling of significance. People who share content do so to get recognition from others in that group and in doing so give themselves significance. An offline analogy is an individual in a group of friends who always wants to be the one telling jokes; they gain significance by sharing jokes with their friends.

Social currency therefore not only provides value to the end users, but also provide additional personal value as a form of currency when shared.

Four further types of Value

Personal value can be broken down into four further types of value: Utility, Knowledge, Entertainment and Monetary.

Utility

This is literally something useful, be it a piece of useful content such as a “how to” guide or a fully fledged branded utility. Branded utilities are where brands create something that provides a tangible, useful benefit to users, such as banks providing applications that allow users to compare the various interest rates

Knowledge

A different kind of value can be gained when people share knowledge within their group. This can start from people who remind their friends that a mutual friend’s birthday is approaching right through to thought leaders in industry, who produce white papers and innovative new methods of working. The personal value is a reward for individuals who share their knowledge; they are valuable members of that community.

Entertainment

Probably the oldest and certainly one of the most common, types of social currency that provides personal value from entertainment is the joke. People tell each other jokes to make members of their group laugh, just as they share funny videos with their social networks and email each other funny pictures. Providing entertaining social currency to your peers gives you significance within your peer group.

Monetary

The final type of value a user can receive from social currency is monetary or financial value. A good example is the online coupons that brands encourage their customers to share with their friends, entitling them to a discount. It is of value not only to the end user, but also to the sharer, as their community gives them kudos for sharing the discount.

Multiplying the effect

These values are not delivered in isolation however, the types of value can be combined to provide stronger social currency, with common examples including useful financial knowledge in the form of “How to live on a budget” guides or entertaining information, which explains why infographics are so widely popular.

At the end of the day, if your brand doesn’t have social currency, if the content it produces isn’t entertaining or useful, if it doesn’t share knowledge or provide a monetary benefit to users then people won’t share it. So what social currency does your brand have?

A handy set of guidelines to help to navigate the social media ocean without being a dick

There are many benefits to starting a blog, or contributing to a pre-existing one. Other than the fact it can be an enjoyable experience you can gain a lot simply by sharing your thoughts online. Here’s a quick list of 8 reasons you should be blogging 

Learn something new about your industry.

By taking the time to sit down regularly and write about a certain aspect of your industry you are bound to begin to learn new things. In taking the time to research you posts you’ll be opened to a whole world of other people’s thoughts.

Learn something new about yourself

I’m a firm believer that by having to actually think through what you think you know, you learn a lot more about what you actually think. By putting words down on a page you are forced to spend time examining what you believe, learning a lot about yourself in the process

Learn from being criticised

If there’s one thing that’s true of the Internet is that if you put somrthing online, someone, somewhere will disagree with it. And this is a good thing. Blogging allows you to share your ideas with the world, but it also allows the world to reply with what it thinks. It may be that your new idea stinks, or that it’s a completely new way of looking at things. But without sharing it with other people it’s difficult to know.

Demonstrate thought leadership – don’t just be a sheep

Everyone has at some point read something or heard someone say something that they disagree with, or seen something that they think they can do better. But very few people actually take the time to put their thoughts down on paper and put it out there for all to see. If you don’t want to be just another sheep it’s time to be bold, and for you speak up with your own thoughts and ideas. And all it takes is a blog.

Be part of the community

Similarly, by sharing your ideas online you become part of the community instead of one of the countless spectators. Blogging gives you a voice online, it allows you to interact with your peers from all over the world and engage with new and interesting people, all the while adding value to your network

Be transparent and authentic

Whilst blogging gives you the opportunity to belong, it can also help you stand out. What better way to demonstrate your transparency and authenticity and differentiate yourself than by sharing your thoughts or position on a certain topic, or by giving readers greater insight into your opinion.

Use your free time constructively.

Sure there are times when you want to watch your favourite TV show, or go out with friends, but there are also those days where you realise you have done nothing at all, and feel like you have wasted your free time. Why not use this time to learn something new and share it with your peers?

Create a movement

Do you have an idea that you think will change things for the better? Do you think that things should be done differently? The Internet has dramatically changed the way we share ideas. Blogging connects us to people who share similar thoughts and beliefs as us from all over the world, a platform that would be almost impossible in the offline world. Blogging is the best solution to find people who are like you and getting your movement off the ground.

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Everybody clicks on links and can end up at a site and they can’t tell what the site is about. This is even more true for a lot of blog, which tend to have the latest post on the front page, without much context. This can be confusing for newcomers. Put it this way, imagine opening the book and the first page you find is actually page 129.

So what are landing pages?

It’s simple really; it’s a certain page that is created for new visitors from specific areas such as the link from your Twitter profile. This guide focuses on creating a Twitter landing page, but the principle can be applied to visitors from other areas. The content will probably largely overlap, but it can be nice to have a note or specific content for users from different locations, such as people clicking on one of your ads, your facebook profile or your youtube channel, dig, reddit etc.

NOTE: a landing page is more than just an about page. Actually, in many senses, it’s less. The landing page is meant to give the visitor a very brief understanding of who you are and what you do. About pages tend to be longer and more detailed, with some authors describing each major character and story arch. This isn’t necessary for a landing page.

What should I put on my landing page?

• A brief bio of yourself. Nothing major, a few lines will suffice
• A description of your blog. This can be more detailed than your personal bio, but don’t spend too long on. Try to make it as concise as possible, and it goes without saying; make the blog sound awesome
• Links to other stuff you do. Do you have another blog? A facebook page? A vlog? Link to them!
• Finally, a link back to Twitter (Facebook, YouTube etc) with a suggestion for the visitor to follow you!

The most important rule is to keep it short. People have come to your site from Twitter to find out a little more about you, not your whole life story. Put too much and people will get bored and leave.

Why should I bother?

The book metaphor wasn’t enough? Okay, I’ll extend it. Imagine that after you’ve opened the book there is a personal note in there just for people who have bought the book from a specific shop. Won’t those people feel special? And loved? And at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. Making people feel loved.

Also, it doesn’t take more than 5 minutes so you really have no excuse not to.

These days there are lots of places to get your blog online for free which has probably helped to fuel the massive growth in the number of blogs over the last decade. People who have no understanding of php or have never seen a html page are able to get their blog hosted for free in minutes. Most of these services also allow a certain degree of customisation to your little part of the internet. And it’s all totally free!

And the best things are free right? Well, no. Sure you save a few bucks in the short term, but in the long term you lose our big time. What happens when you no longer want to be hosted on someone else’s site and you want to move to your own server? Or if the site that hosts your blog collapses. Or, if you’ve been naughty, if they kick you off. At this point you will have to buy a domain, but now, people’s bookmarks, the links back to your comic; they’re all pointing at the wrong place! Buy registering your own domain name you’ll be able to change hosting services whenever you want meaning you won’t be tied down to a slow, ad filled environment, or forced to stay on a site that has terrible downtime.

Also, yourblog.com just looks so much better than yourblog.someone-elses-site.com. It shows a level of professionalism, it shows your audience you’re taking it seriously. Looking at long winded subdomains isn’t fun, and they are hard to remember. If you register your own domain you get to choose something short, snappy, and most importantly, memorable.

The only con is that you will have to pay for the domain. But, seriously, these days you can get a domain for 10 dollars a year. Trust me; it’s defiantly worth it in the long run. If you don’t want to invest the minimal fee of $10 you may need to rethink how much you really care about your blog.