By Sarthak Bangwal

When Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, he did not really know the potential of the site or how big and important it would become in people's lives. Facebook is now one of the world's biggest social media companies and has acquired other platforms such as WhatsApp and Instagram. Today a great deal of business and marketing is conducted on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, which earn heavily from advertising.

Companies use social media to build a customer base and to provide quick customer support. Customers, in turn, complain on social media when something goes wrong with a product, and companies try to respond and negotiate quickly so that their reputation with customers and followers is not damaged. In this way social media keeps companies in check and makes it harder for them to exploit their power.

With social media comes the practice of leveraging networks. Leveraging, in this sense, means using other people's money, resources and ideas to reach one's goals faster. The practice itself is neither good nor bad; it is people who decide how to use it. Leveraging networks can serve society, for example when leaders use their connections to remove obstacles from a worthwhile project, or it can be used purely for personal gain.

With great power comes great responsibility, and not everyone can be trusted with it. Rich, powerful and visionary people, just like underdogs, have a shadow side that can activate when they hold an unfair advantage over the majority, whether through wealth or social influence. Throughout history people have made terrible mistakes and then tried to fix them using their power. This shows why we need to build self-awareness, so that we do not destroy what we have built through impulsiveness. Self-development is the key to becoming a better human being and a moral person.

Once we have self-control and have developed ourselves, social media and leveraged networks can do a lot of good for a company and a career. We can use our networks to win new clients in a competitive market, to hire talent we know will boost the company's productivity, and to stay up to date with the job market and with different points of view. All of this gives us and the company an advantage over competitors. It helps us analyse threats in advance and act accordingly, and it helps us spot opportunities and get things done. Society is a playground for the ego; we just have to be able to control it.