Last week I had the great privilege of being asked to participate in SAP’s Social Media Day in Silicon Valley; part of global Social Media Week (see here for SMG’s own contribution to SMWTO).

Organized by Natascha Thomson of Marketing Xlerator, speakers included SAP’s CMO Jonathan Becher, who opened the day with a keynote that asked the question, “How Social Should Your Culture Be?”, followed by a panel discussion that I participated in along with Constellation Research CEO Ray Wang (video of all sessions can be viewed here). Possibly the most interesting outcome of our chat? The hashtag #deadpuppy (watch the video to see what I mean).

Subsequent discussions included:

The Social Culture, lead by SAP Vice President of Social Media Brian Ellefritz, which included a panel that discussed the challenges of building a social brand, which featured Maria Poveromo from Adobe, Len Devanna from the most excellent Ant’s Eye View, Lisa Rosner, CMO of Netbase, and Becky Ann Brown, Director of Social Media at Intel.

The Social Audience, lead by SAP’s Mark Yolton, Senior Vice President of Communities and Social Media. The amazing Rachel Happe, Co-Founder of the Community Roundtable, delivered a presentation titled, “Why People, Relationships and Communities are Becoming Strategic”. I delivered a talk about Content Marketing and how marketers must learn how to use it to earn attention in a “billion channel universe”. We finished up with a great panel discussion that included Deidre Walsh from Jive Software, Kimarie Matthews from Wells Fargo and SAP Mentor Srini Tanikella.

Social Technology, the final session, was moderated by Timo Elliott, Senior Director of Strategic Marketing at Business Objects (who also takes the most fantastic pictures on Instagram) and explored how social techniques can be used to enhance and improve the way products are made and sold.

Overall, it was a tremendous day filled with incredibly high-quality content and speakers, and it was a pleasure to have been invited to contribute. I took away a ton of information and insight, as I’m sure the room full of attendees did as well. For those of you not able to be there, video of the entire day is available here.

[disclosure: SAP is an SMG client]