This has be true - whether it was the UK in the 19th century, the US, Japan and Germany in the 20th or China and, increasingly, India now.

It may be that nations have abundant and valuable natural resources to trade but, if not, then it has to be goods and services that the world want.

The 'rebalancing' of Western economies since the credit crunch of 2008, after years of living beyond their means, was surely inevitable. Without wishing to get political I simply cannot believe that more borrowing by Western nations and more spending on internal infrastructure projects can produce the return to GDP growth we all seek.

If Nations are to invest at all then it needs to be in helping the wealth producers develop and to trade globally. Wealth producing businesses should be massively encouraged and supported through the removal of red tape, investment funding, tax incentives and underwriting some export risk.

Often we see the reverse happening - UK universities, for example, have an envied reputation for excellence around the world and are an important generator of wealth and foreign exchange for the country - but we have the government making it more difficult for overseas students to come to the UK through new visa controls.

If we really do want our Nations to thrive once again there should be no sector of society more supported, more revered than the wealth producers.

If we really do want our Nations to thrive once again there should be no sector of society more supported, more revered than the wealth producers.

- and by the way, I do not believe ownership is important here. In the UK, for example, our motor vehicle industry is no longer British owned. What that has meant is that vast amounts of outside finance has been brought in to modernise and develop the industry and as a result it is now prospering globally - whether it is Jaguar Land Rover or Nissan or Ford or Toyota. They are exporting more than ever and contributing massively to the Nation's GDP.

Now is surely the time for us to be injecting support and confidence.

Consumer confidence has had one of its biggest upturns according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Global Customer Confidence Index:

1. Timing
"Paying close attention to the season, current affairs and high-profile events provides a great starting point," says Emailvision social media marketing manager James Medd. "From there you need to think how best to incorporate your brand. Heinz Soup did this well, timing a 'Get Well Soup' campaign that offered UK Facebook fans the chance to buy personalised soup tins for poorly friends during the flu season. The campaign saw 72,835 tab views and saw Facebook 'likes' double from 16,000 to 32,810."

2. Get emotional
"Viral, it's all about the extremes of humanity, voyeurism and emotion. From the serious end of political uprisings and human evil and natural disasters, to the light-hearted moments of people or animals doing crazy things," says Fortune Cookie managing director Maggie Lonergan. "Videos go viral when they touch a raw emotional nerve. For brands, this means connecting your values with a universal human truth - whether it be backing a serious or political cause or creating a moment of joy. And the emotional reaction the video provokes should be reason enough to view and share, it should not need to over-rely on paid media, that's not viral."

3. Be brave
"Ideas often get watered down by committee - usually from the need to pacify compliance or legal departments," says Initials Marketing director Craig Lawrie. "Not only does this dilute the idea but the end result often isn't effective or entertaining. Once you hand something to the community, you can't ask for it back and that applies to brands and content that is already in the public consciousness. Rather than trying to stop users from sharing content created from your assets, actively encourage it. When the distributors of Downfall demanded YouTube remove all parodies of the film they ended up alienating those who were actually advocating the film in the first place."

4. Strike the right tone
"Viral content ideally needs to be comedic, political, sexy, controversial or newsworthy to have any social currency," says TMW group planning director Richard Pentin. "For example, Lynx's Fallen Angels augmented reality experience in Victoria Station was entertaining with sexual undertones. Likewise, commercials, videos or campaigns that are edgy or cool are more likely to be shared than those more conservative in nature. What people share is a reflection of their own identities or image they wish to project, so people are more likely to share with their peers if the content has some intrinsic value or kudos factor."

5. Talent plus timing plus luck
"There's no formula for guaranteeing a viral 'hit' but the best one I ever heard is from the record business - timing plus talent plus luck," says Upfront director Matt Jagger. "You can't do anything about the luck but you can control the first two. Try to work with established talent. Talent brings you audience, credibility and leverage. It can make good content great and potentially deliver longevity. Getting the timing right is about giving your audience something that they want right now or that they didn't even know they wanted."

6. Authenticity
"Once you say 'we need to create a viral video,' you're most likely doomed," says Strongmail social media director Dan Opallo. "Most of the iconic viral videos were not created with that intent. A big reason they went viral in the first place was because the savvy social universe saw them as authentic and didn't feel like they were the prey of marketers."

7. Explore
"YouTube can be a great playground to explore to see what type of content takes off, although not all of it would pass the appropriateness test for marketers," says Ogilvy Action head of social Matt Gierhart. "One of the most popular 'YouTubers' currently is Ray William Johnson. He pulls videos from YouTube and reviews and narrates them. The result is hilarious but massively insightful. He has a natural instinct for why things work. And to prove the point, his reviews in themselves are massively viral, with between three million and five million people tuning in regularly."

8. Seeding
"'Seed' your video -that is, post links to the video - ranging from uploading to YouTube to reaching out to involved influencers such as relevant bloggers and online communities," says Famous4Communications managing director Daniel Bausor. "This will give you the Pied Piper viral effect which is why video is 53 times more likely to produce a first page result on Google than traditional search engine optimisation."

9. Personalisation
Viral content doesn't have to be a single piece of content. It can be thousands, each one personalised to one of your customers," says Imagination senior creative strategist Tom Gray. "When we created our Ken Block augmented reality experience we wanted to allow customers to take that experience away and share it through viral content. The key is making the content utterly braggable and shareable by making it 'believably unbelievable', putting them in an amazing context and make them famous by association with a famous person or an already viral theme - in this case, Ken Block's Gymkhana series on YouTube."

10. New platforms
"We've found Pinterest to be a great channel through which to spread our messages virally," says Unique Home Stays PR and marketing officer Rhianna Morton. "Within hours of uploading an image, it can be re-pinned by hundreds - or even thousands - of other users. We've found that striking images of our luxury holiday homes are re-pinned far more frequently than they would be shared on other social networking sites. It's fairly new, but it's a growing platform so now is the time for businesses to get involved, especially if imagery is a strong point for them."

Firstly a word of caution - from a legal workshop I was at recently - the law of copyright is that
"The creator has automatic ownership unless assigned in writing"
So your website designer, photographer, video technician, outsourced designer, for example will all have copyright unless you have specifically got it assigned to you in writing.

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I have found myself increasingly putting the service I receive from organisations into one of two categories either "outstanding" or " lousy" - there doesn't seem to be just 'average' any more. I've introduced therefore "Golden Helicopter"