Check out this image.

Now I’m pulling this next blurb from Vivaldi Partners via wikipedia but pay attention to it:

Vivaldi Partners defined social currency as the extent to which people share the brand or information about the brand as part of their everyday social lives at work or at home.

Now, let’s fast forward to an article that Jay Baer wrote in which he states that online influencer outreach is overrated:

I’m not suggesting that influencer outreach is useless or should be abandoned. But, it’s not magic beans. It needs to be looked at for what it actually is – the top of the funnel component of a larger program to generate awareness AND behavior using social media and content marketing.

So take all the aspects of social currency run them through how marketers use them, snap on Jay’s components and basically what you’re left with is a bunch of marketers floundering with the notion of what social currency is. They’re thinking that presence equates to value divided by attention will equal ROI. 

Social currency may not be counterfeit but we need to put the proper value on the currency before it’s too late.