As someone with a personal and professional interest in communication and marketing, I'm fascinated by digital and social media, and how it can not only drive business growth, but also be a force for good.
If there was any doubt that this is the information age, just look at the statistics: as a species we humans have created more information in the last 30 years than we created in recorded history.
The statistics are fascinating, even overwhelming in the context of South Africa as a BRICS state, but also as an African one.
Mobile phone use on the continent has increased by 20% each year in the last five years. This presents massive opportunities for communication in an Africa ripe with potential: 70% of Africans under the age of 25; our continent's workforce grows by 25 million a year, with 5 million university graduates, and 7 of the world's 10 fastest growing economies are on this continent.
Obviously this holds business opportunities and a chance to do good while doing well, but just how, precisely? What does all this have to do with my business, that of marketing alcohol? Is it risky or simply a waste?
Social media can be a cesspool of free-floating bile that depresses the sunniest of souls. Trolling is a massive problem, and privacy seems a thin, porous concept, as we saw from the recent leaking of celebrities' private pictures.
Also, the sheer volume of content can seem overwhelming, whether it's helpful, puerile or simply inconsequential. Each minute of each day, around 24 hours of video is posted on Youtube, and 36,000 images on Instagram. Political discourse gets picked apart on social media too, of course. Much of the dialogue is harmless, even constructive at times, but some of it is tasteless or downright offensive. Every so often someone loses their job over some snafu, posted online in an unthinking moment or through the red mist of trolling.
Of course there are the more sinister corners of social media: extremism, videos of hostages being murdered.
So social media can be a place of menace as well as trivia, a timewasting, seemingly fathomless fascination with celebrity, but its presence in society is undeniable.
If Facebook was a country, it would be world's third-largest, behind China, which has 1.34 billion and India, which has 1.2 billion.
Every so often, though, social media strikes a blow for good. An example was the effort to raise funds for victims of the massive fires on the Cape Peninsula, as well as support for the firefighters.
Crowdfunding is a fascinating, effective way for entrepreneurs to fund new ventures using social media. It's a funding model that could scarcely have been imagined a few years ago.
Another example is the Drive Dry initiative, which encourages social media users to pledge that if they drink, they won't drive, and if they drive, they won't drink. By sharing their pledge on social media they're not only able to share rides, but also build a groundswell of peer pressure that makes it socially unacceptable to drink and drive.
Such initiatives can be a flash in the pan due to the transient nature of social media, but Drive Dry has struck a chord with online communities: 32,288 people have declared they'll drink and not drive, or drive and not drink.
It's precisely this kind of personal activism that will promote responsible enjoyment of alcohol. Effective action against the scourge of drunk driving demands more than just effective enforcement. The prospect of prosecution must be paired with the prospect of ostracism from one's social circle for endangering lives by driving drunk.
The Drive Dry campaign is linked to Azikwe Ke, a radio serial about four young black men, their attitudes toward drunk driving and how their "It won't happen to me" outlook can lead to them losing everything in an instant.
These are powerful, topical examples of how social media can be a powerful tool to save lives and transform society. Business has an obligation to embrace that, and to work with other stakeholders such as government and civil society to ensure constructive and effective efforts to do so.
