Remember small towns and little neighborhoods in big cities where the local vendors knew your name, knew what you liked, where they ‘cared’ about you? A business lived and died by word of mouth. Life changed. Small town centers failed and moved to strip shopping malls. City dwellers moved to the suburbs. Businesses stopped caring. But according to social media guru, Gary Vaynerchuk in his latest book, The Thank You Economy, along came social media and turned the clock back. The author views the world now as a giant small town where businesses have to create that ‘caring’ attitude towards their customers. Anyone on Facebook or Twitter can type in their buying experience, local or not, with the possibility of starting a movement that could make or break a business. Greed isn’t good anymore. In the 24-hours-a-day Internet-connected world, you’ve got to ‘care’ more about your customers than your competition does. Vaynerchuk promotes qualities like good manners, patience, integrity, authenticity and above all, transparency, the art of being totally open and honest with the buying public. Vaynerchuk’s model is pro-consumer and he’s the first to say that not all businesses are on board yet. But he bets that they soon will be. Do you know what your customers are saying about you on Facebook?

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