As businesses bask in the warmth of a social media presence with increased customer interaction, branding opportunities and expanded marketing capabilities, they now need to carve out the next phase of their social evolution. They need to make the shift towards social business.

What is Social Business?
Social business is a concept of moving past posting compelling content, and developing it into every day business practices. “With social business you start to look at the way people are interacting in digital experiences and apply the insights derived to a wide variety of different business processes.” Ethan McCarty, Senior Manager of Digital and Social Strategy at IBM 
Social business utilizes the channels to create productive experiences for everyone from customers to employees. Successful social business is all about taking what works best in social (collaboration, real-time data, and brand awareness) and applying it to other areas of the business (sales, customer service, and advertising). e.g. IBM added web pages for sales personnel with links to their Twitter and Facebook account so that they are more accessible and knowable for customers.

"While creating a social brand is a necessary endeavor, building a social business is an investment..." Brian Solis

Helpful article:
The Path to Co-Creating a Social Business

The Edge on Brand Marketing
"We are not just passing into another historical period or... cultural modification.......But more specifically we are terminating the last 65 million years of life development."
Thomas Berry, historian philosopher

Habits of a
Holistic Brand
Change is the Lord of the Universe. Everything is in a state of becoming of continuall flux. How do you stay. How to stay centered and coherent in the swing of inevitable changes. Holistic brand wisdom from the master himself.
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"We are in the business of sales but we don't start with a pitch. we start with a conversation. We try to develop story engines. We ask: What story are you trying to tell? We want to launch a thousand ships together.”
Cecelia Wogan-Silva, director of creative agency development at Google

The future of branding belongs to storytellers who understand the hero’s journey in the context of modern, mobile life. The hero’s journey is a storytelling structure pervasive across cultures. It starts with a call to adventure, requires that the hero be connected to others, including a mentor. The hero will face extremely difficult challenges along the way. The hero ultimately wins and returns home, armed with new knowledge about herself, other people and the world.

Does your brand inspire people to respond to the call for adventure, whether through providing information, tools or a catalyst? Does it help them overcome the obstacles they will face on the path, either by making sure they have nourishment, transportation, tools, information or access to other people? If your brand doesn’t serve any of the segments in the hero’s journey, you’re right to be concerned about the future. Read more