Factiva to host a Social Media Round Table- why don't you tell us what companies should be monitoring and why

Over the last few months i have been having a lot of conversations with folks in the Bay area- from A-list to D-List bloggers, customers, corporate communications/PR folks and public relations companies among other social media enthusiasts about Social Media and what it means to companies that are trying to understand, monitor, measure and leverage it.

Last week i attended the Social Media Club's "From Social Media to Corporate Media: An Interactive Workshop for Communications Professionals" and spent a very engaging afternoon with a bunch of really smart people who have either given this a lot of thought already or have recently realized that it can not be ignored. I have a half written draft post about my thoughts and gained knowledge nuggets from the event that i will try to get up this week.

The idea to host a round table was sparked by a conversation i encouraged our Factiva Insight product folks to have with Jeremiah Owyang after i read this post about the tools that companies need to monitor the new types of media that are being produced. We listened to Jeremiah, engaged with some others and are now ready to listen some more.

The Social Media Roundtable will be taking place on Tuesday December 5th at Zibibbo in Palo Alto.CA in the late afternoon followed by dinner and drinks. The event is by invitation only since we want to keep it an intimate 'round table' event (15-20) and i am currently working off a list that a bunch of us have put together (invites to go out this week)- but if i don't know you (yet!) and you are interested in participating in an event that will help shape the solutions that companies are/will be looking for drop me a line at daniela[dot]barbosa[@]factiva.com.

I will be posting more on this subject as we work to get the event finalized- but some topics that we will be discussing include:

• Is Consumer Generated Media [CGM] important and should it be measured?
• What should we measure, and as a company how do you want it delivered?
• Will companies be weighting blogs and other CGM as part of their media plans?