Simon Mainwaring

With the never-ending stream of new social technologies, apps and platforms rolling out every day, its easy to get lost in the minutiae of social media. Yet for there to be effective change, especially within large, top-down, hierarchical institutions, a company must have an over-arching understanding of the new role it has to play.

When people align around shared political, social, economic or environmental values, and take collective action, thinking and behavior that compromises the lives of millions of people around the world can truly change.

Brands must empower their community to be change agents in their own right. To that end, they need to take on a mentoring role. This means the brand provides the tools, techniques and strategies for their customers to become more effective marketers in achieving their own goals.

It is time for corporate America to become ‘the third pillar’ of social change in our society, complementing the first two pillars of government and philanthropy. We need the entire private sector to begin committing itself not just to making profits, but to fulfilling higher and larger purposes by contributing to building a better world.

The question remains: which brands will commit to creating a private sector pillar of social change, and which will become casualties of their own outdated thinking?

Effectively, change is almost impossible without industry-wide collaboration, cooperation and consensus.

What is sure is that technological change is accelerating in all directions and, like children playing in a fountain, consumers are reveling in the experience.

The creative destruction that social media is currently unleashing will change more than technology or the leader board of the Fortune 100. It is driving a qualitative shift in the nature of relationships between brands and their customers.

The new dynamics between brands and consumers, driven by social media, are proving to be a powerful impetus for change.