We First
How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World
By: Simon Mainwaring
Published: June 7, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 256 pages
ISBN-10: 0230110266
ISBN-13: 978-0230110267
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
"We First is about a new way of looking at capitalism. It seeks to initiate a greater degree of honesty and frankness into our thinking about free market capitalism as the engine that propels our society", writes brand consultant, international speaker, blogger, and founder of We First, Simon Mainwaring, in his visionary and thought provoking book We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World. The author describes how selfish, short term thinking, based on greed, has resulted in a broken and unsustainable economy, necessitating a fresh approach to how capitalism operates for the benefit of everyone.
Simon Mainwaring recognizes that businesses face a weakening economy, increased demands for profit, and challenges to their brands from all over the world. Because of a concern on the part of consumers about the social consciousness of major brands, and an empowered customer base utilizing many social media tools, companies are seeing a new business climate evolving and they are struggling to meet these fresh challenges. Simon Mainwaring proposes a fresh approach to capitalism itself, with companies embracing the new social media visibility and working toward creating a better and more sustainable world economy. In what he terms the failing Me World, writes the author, these challenges were resisted and the result was loss of market, lower profits, and a greatly reduced brand image in the eyes of the new consumer.
Simon Mainwaring (photo left) proposes a visionary new way of conducting business that is both sustainable as a business model, but also one that works toward a greater good. The author demonstrates how the wise use of social media by brands can solve both challenges at once. Through building relationships with consumers through social media, brands can develop loyalty and good will resulting in higher profits. At the same time, communicating with empowered consumers and change organizations creates the unified power to facilitate real change in society and economic conditions. Far from disparaging capitalism as the powerful engine of economic growth and societal change, |Simon Mainwaring sees social media driven capitalism as a force for positive change and the development of a much more sustainable economic model.
For me, the power of the book is how Simon Mainwaring makes the connection between brands, empowered consumers, and social and economic change through the vehicle of social media. To achieve his aims, of wins for the company, for the customers, and for the world, transforming customers into partners and evangelists for the company and its brands, the author recommends thinking in terms of We First. In the previous economic model, now proven to be an unsustainable failure, the thinking on the part of companies was the greedy, self centered Me First mentality.
While that concept worked in the short term, the long term result was loss of customers and profit, an unsustainable business model, and a vastly weakened economy. The author's encouragement of a social media fueled new capitalism is based on a pairing of empowered consumers with brands. Their combined goals of sustainability and a better world can then be achieved as a powerful pairing. The author calls this new capitalism the We First Economy. In effect, every aspect of a business, and every empowered customer can combine to create a real change. Simon Mainwaring bolsters his concept with some real world examples who are taking precisely that visionary approach.
I highly recommend the groundbreaking and fresh thinking filled book We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World by Simon Mainwaring, to any companies, business leaders, governments, non-profit organizations, or average citizens who are seeking to create real change in the world through thinking in terms of equitable society, sustainability, and a new economy. The author suggests a new form of capitalism, based on a responsible private sector working in harmony with their customers, as the basis for building a better world for all.
Read the important and essential book We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Build a Better World by Simon Mainwaring, and discover how We First capitalism can create a sustainable and more just economy and a brighter world. This book will renew your faith in capitalism to do good, and to transform its very nature, to become a relevant and world improving force for good.
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