Why You Need To Build and Nurture Your Social Currency

Social currency describes the resources and abilities created and accessible through presence in offline or online networks and communities. Derived from the social capital theory put forward by Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist and philosopher. It's about increasing our sense of community, granting access to knowledge and information, and helping create our own identities, as well as providing status and recognition.



According to Erich Joachimsthaler, Founder and CEO of Vivaldi Partners Group, a growth strategy firm: “There is this massive amount of information that consumers are willing to share today. They engage in conversations with brands or people, they advocate for brands or people, they communicate, they become part of communities. Managers need to understand how consumers engage with their brands in the digital and social universe.”

Succinctly put, it is the total economic value of each person’s or entity’s relationships, both in real life and on the Internet.

Types of behavior that lead to Social Currency

There are six types of behavior that lead to social currency: Conversation, Information, Advocacy, Identity, Affiliation and Utility.

Social currency in business
Marketing professionals say that social currency is the extent to which we share information regarding a brand as part of our everyday social lives at home or at work.

This sharing helps commercial enterprises create unique brand identities and gain permission to interact with customers or consumers. Social currency has become a major focus for companies in order to create value for themselves. Brands are built through experiences, through individuals accepting them and making them part of the fabric of their everyday lives. The process of building strong brands is extremely personal as well as very social.

A brand’s strength is its social currency
One of the major strengths of a brand in the world today is its social currency – the extent to which consumers share the brand or information about it with others as an integral part of their everyday social lives.

The dramatically rapid evolution of the Internet – plus the explosion of the social web’s forms of media, technologies and networks – have changed how we live and how brands are built.

Why do brands need social currency?
Brands represent considerable assets for businesses. A brand’s strength is closely linked to a number of well-known asset dimensions that drive relationships with consumers.

The nature of the Internet, smartphones and other mobile technologies has become extremely social for consumers – they integrate the new technologies and platforms into their everyday lives and contexts. A good brand manager needs to understand how they interact in all parts of life with brands, products, people and businesses. Hence, every business today must learn how to make its brand more social, and how to interact in novel ways with its customers.

Every brand need to build and nurture their social currency. It will not only encourage potential customers to consider your product or service but also lead them to a purchase decision and give customers a way to show loyalty by referring family and friends.