We now see numerous examples of brands working together to address issues such as environmental degradations climate control pollution poverty and disease.

Brands must have a point of view on that purposeful engagement whether it's directed towards the environment poverty water as a resource or causes such as breast cancer or education. Merely declaring your commitment to a category or cause will not be enough the distinguish your brand sufficiently to see a return on these well-intended efforts.

I am extremely involved in the design process of both my brands Winter Kate and House of Harlow 1960.

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.

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brands will commit to creating a private sector pillar of social change and which will become casualties of their own outdated thinking?

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

I definitely love that all these car brands are coming out with hybrid forms of every car that they have. It's very awesome because I think it does make a difference and it doesn't hurt that you save a lot of money on gas.

In the social business marketplace brands that hope to build loyal and growing communities do so most effectively when they demonstrate their core values and allow a community to build and engage around it.

The social business marketplace is effectively forcing brands to engage with consumers on the basis of something that is meaningful to them. More often than not this takes the form of some core value that finds expression in a non-profit cause.