For some companies, strategy in social media is based on simply being present with a profile on the different platforms. However, the real value lies within being able to converse with users, an ability that has a lot of potential for businesses.

Even though social networks weren’t created to be a selling kind of environment, with time we’ve seen how businesses have used social media to find new clients and lower marketing costs.

Whatever the size, when a business joins a social network they are faced with various challenges and opportunities requiring previous thought and strategy, one being what content to publish.

Before social media existed, in the business world only a few organizations worried about creating original content as part of their marketing strategy, known today as content marketing. Today content is necessary to maintain a presence in the mind social media followers, and is actually a large reason why businesses even have followers or fans.

Do a Google search for “marketing is dead” and you’ll find many apocalyptic opinions about the future of the function. Regardless of your stance on the subject, there’s no question that a collective philosophical navel-gazing about marketing’s purpose is underway.  Here’s why that’s the case, why it’s dangerous for business, and what needs to change.

Seth Godin faced the World Business Forum Buenos Aires audience and proposed a simple yet provoking question, setting the stage for the rest of his presentation: how did we get so rich? In just a couple hundred years we’ve reached a level of prosperity never before seen. From capitalism to industrialization, Godin suggests we have entered into a new age, what he calls the connection revolution. The rules have changed, and with them the methods to achieving success. In the following, discover Godin’s six building blocks to connection.

Reprinted with permission from Forbes.com

For proof that recruiting has entered a new era, one need look no further than an exceptionally novel internship application submitted this summer by Shawn McTigue. This playful 2:50 video by Shawn was a response to Mastercard’s call for applicants to creatively promote the benefits of a “cashless society.” It was his take on the “something creative” all interns were required to link to as part of the application. The rest of the process involved engaging on MasterCard‘s Facebook page, uploading a resume via LinkedIn, and following MasterCard on Twitter for further directions. The campaign represents the future of recruiting, where the process demands that applicants showcase their skills –and in the process makes them stronger candidates.

Imagine you are a sales agent and you attract an important business investment; however no one in your company ever finds out. Do you know your importance and value within your company? In a social business, everyone knows your achievements and recognizes you for them.

Social media has revolutionized how we communicate. However, it can also offer communication solutions internally within companies, adopted in order to avoid miscommunication, and nurture feedback and recognition of what each person achieves.

How many of you listen to music with your headphones at work? Use the internal phone line to call a co-worker that is less than 20 yards away? Participate in meetings where you are talking, checking mails, and plan dinner all at the same time? Thanks to new technology we are able to do more, faster. However, how has this affected the way we interact with one another? After all, people make up our organizations. Are we paying attention to the changing nature of our interactions?  We are constantly connected, but do we communicate? In the following we challenge you to reconsider how technology is effecting communication and relationships, and give practical advice on how to incorporate new strategies to keep the conversation going in the office.

In our video of the day, Linda Boff, Director of Digital Marketing at GE, encourages companies to get off the sidelines and get started with social media. However, beyond the official corporate social media channels, a new trend is for an individual’s private social media accounts to start overlapping with their professional profile.   This raises questions over the emergence of a new age of accountability where  professional and private are inseparable, overlapping, and completely open to the public.

As discussed in a blog last week—separating the public from the private isn’t the most realistic of tasks. Work-life integration is the new trend. So what does meshing your personal and private social media accounts mean for your personal identity? How to manage the two? Discover tips on how to elegantly sculpt your social media profiles in order to integrate your multi-faceted identity, give followers what they want, and keep your day job.

In the past five years, many marketing departments have thrown their classic strategy out the window to opt for a more open, less expensive, and more personal way to connect with clients: social media. Discover just how impactful these networks have become in the following infographic.

These are without doubt the most participated in, and talked about, Olympic games of all time. But with the ousting last week of both Michael Morganella and Voula Papachristo for offensive tweets, surely one of the biggest game changers in London this year is social media itself. With so much at stake, it begs the questions do athletes need social coaches – and what is the role of the digital medium in the Olympics?