Social Media, Social Entrepreneurship and Conscious Business

WOW! What a title! Now let me see if I can explain what Social Media, Social Entrepreneurship and Conscious Business have in common…

Firstly let’s see what each of these hugely important topics are on their own and then we can get down to tin tacks about how vitally important they are for the new era of business.

Social Media – I like to explain that social media a way to connect, contribute, collaborate and develop relationships with others including your audience, customers and other business owners. This more than anything else is where social media comes into it’s own, it is not just about spreading the word about your business or initiative. Social Media has as it’s prime directive socialization of people from all over the world and is changing the face of the world forever!

How? Because never before in history has there been the technology that is capable of connecting the world in one place. In fact this revolutionary medium is now the venue for the social conscience of the entire planet! Never before in history have people been able to create conversations around any topic at all and even influence the direction of corporations and even governments. The power finally rests with – The People of Earth to make real change! I wonder if you have thought about it this way before?

If not just think about how easy it is to get someone to ‘Like’ your post, and to comment on it, and then to rally to it and then to ACT on it! This is the whole premise behind conversation to conversion that social media marketing uses to sell products and services on social networking. Here however I am talking about using social media for social change and this is where it is unbelievably powerful, realistically a few people who are able to rally the masses on social media could change the course of history right here and right now!

Social Entrepreneurship – social entrepreneurs are people who recognize social problems and use entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to affect social change. Social entrepreneurship can involve planning an approach to solving a social problem or in its best use of it, adopt a transformative approach to create sustainable social change, particularly when it comes to balancing profit and values in business.

Social entrepreneurs have big ideals and tackle those issues they find important with dedication and persistance, and most of all they are innovative, using an out-of-the-box thinking or “fractal” thinking to create new ideas for wide ranging social change. Rather than changing one thing at a time, they change entire systems, spread the solution far and wide and even persuade whole societies to leap forward and sideways in their thinking and create actionable change.

Social entrepreneurs use their social abilities to present their ideas in a user friendly, comprehensive, ethical and understandable way which engages widespread support in even the most hard core corporation or government. They are the ultimate mass recruiter channeling their passion via local change-makers and prove the point that a small group of committed people can change the world.

Conscious Business – The conscious business has global vision not just a local or corporate one, they fuel that global vision with values and actionable goals and outcomes that lead the way in values based sustainable business practices. They use their business not only to create financial support for themselves, they also have a pay-it-forward mentality and know that if the world is to change it is up to them to lead the way.

The conscious business has in place a set of strategies to improve life on this planet in various ways that take advantage of their own skills and expertise, this is not just in place as a donation and tax right-off to be seen to be doing good, rather a genuine way of helping those less fortunate to turn their lives around, knowing that all good business begins with adding value to their community, their local area and the world.

The explanation for how these 3 tie together lies within my last post, Social Media Simple, Fast, Effective so please read it as well. When we are able to use social media to effect change and raise awareness on a grand scale throughout the world, we are able to spread change where it is needed most in the corporate world and in government.

Here in the halls of traders and government departments where change is slowest we can use the power of the people to create change in business practices and the governments will have to sit up and take notice if their bread and butter, their financial foundation the businesses and corporations of the world are insisting on doing business in ethical and sustainable ways that add value to the planet rather than taking from it.

Yes this is a HUGE ask, however never before in history have we had the power to effect this kind of change before, now is the time to make it happen, yes right now! With the US economy still trying to recover, with the devastation in other world economies from snow, floods, earthquakes etc.. we are in a time of flux, perfect for starting fresh rather than rebuilding what we had before. We can build anew, with a new ethos.

I would love to see a template created for the conscious business and see this taught in all business schools and universities across the world.. now that is at least one of my dreams – too big? I don’t think so – not with the power of social media it’s not. Are you in?

Related articles

• A Definition of Social Entrepreneurship (brighthub.com)
• Social entrepreneurs pioneering social change: Less maverick, more movement? (2plus2equals10.wordpress.com)
• Has the Social Entrepreneurship Field Come Through the Trough of Disillusionment? (socialentrepreneurship.change.org)