As co-CEO of Katalyst Media, Ashton Kutcher is on the cutting edge of all things related to making money and extending brand reach with social media.

Kutcher’s rise as a business visionary is quite an accomplishment, considering he is best known as the pretty-boy lunkhead from “That 70s Show.” Fast Company this month featured Kutcher in its cover story. It’s an insightful look inside Kutcher’s team.

Ashton’s Katalyst Media provides good insight for small businesses that might be struggling with What do I do with Social Media?

Ashton’s team is experimenting daily with Facebook, Twitter and blogging. Katalyst Media understands that this media needs to have a return on investment.

Great content, they’ve discovered, drives eyeballs.

What is great content? Stories, photos, video, links — anything that gets people talking and wanting to pass it along to a friend.

Great content fuels return on investment.

Great content is not a new concept. But making money from it these days requires a new way of doing business. As Ashton points out, some of the brightest minds in Silicon Valley still haven’t figured out how to make great content pay for itself.

But innovators are figuring it out. Small businesses need to think like Ashton and experiment with social media as a way of getting great content to your target audience.