Social Capital

Social capital is the currency of involvement. If, say your customers, love your organisation and if they involve themselves in promoting your cause and in extending your reach, you have positive social capital. Your customers become part of your team; they create value with you and for you; you don’t just create value by selling goods and services to customers. Got it? This is not a minor change in your organisation’s work. It is a fundamental change – a new mindset for doing business.

Social capital gradually becomes as important as other types of capital: structural capital (real estate, machinery, stock etc.), financial capital (cash, debtors, shares) and intellectual capital (knowledge, intellectual property rights). For some organisations, social capital may become even more imprtant than other types of capital.

Social capital is not equal to brand equity. Brand equity is the value of your brand. The sum of perceptions that relate to your brand. Social capital is much broader. It also includes for instance how your organisation relates to employees, how you are seen as an employer, you relationship with supplieres and your legitimacy with the general prublic. In short how and how much you involve all stakeholders of your organisation.