I agree with @doitvoluntarily, "all of the above", and I'd elaborate on this one:

Rewarding casual content that is more consistent to most social media?

I don't think that all casual content **needs** to receive rewards, but I agree that it should at least be permitted to earn rewards. Punishing people for behaving the same way they do everywhere else has always been a really bad idea. In addition to being elitist, as another commenter observed, It also amounts to imposing a near-prohibition on viral content.

Other points: back in the days before the SPS was deployed, I think you had suggested that it could be used to fund marketing efforts. I agreed at the time, and I still agree now. I think that marketing would be a really good use of SPS funds, as long as it doesn't outpace the account creation process and it's transparent so the community can be sure that the funds are not being misused.

Ensuring good use of SPS funds is a problem for all uses, not just marketing. I don't know how you fix it, but I think it has a little to much of a "Just trust me" feeling to it at the moment.

One thought that crossed my mind a while back was to see the SPS (and voters) as a corporate board of directors, and have it hire itself a CEO/CFO who could oversee the use of the funds, recommend strategic proposals to voters, and publish quarterly reports to account for expenditures. No idea what (if any) regulatory implications that might have, though.