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 framing of how we relate to each other within and across social media platforms will continue to become more sophisticated and nuanced in their expression of how we structure our relationships in our real world lives.

Social media is not an end in itself. It's just another tool to reach people.

If a brand wants to build social communities, capital and influence, it must become the chief celebrant of its community, not its celebrity. This simple shift in approach unlocks enormous transformative potential for brands.

As a speaker, business leader or marketer of any type, the onus is now on each of us to become equally capable of communicating very personally with a seemingly endless number of people connected by social technologies.

Ensure your employees understand what your brand stands for so they can be your first line of word-of-mouth advertising.

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.