The value of social media lies in people, as consumers help to shape or influence reputation it’s clear that media has already changed. While conversations occur around products or brands the key is knowing where these are happening, your role in them and which conversations you should be involved in. This is the value of listening, what issues matter to your customers and what drives that passion on particular subjects.

A great quote from yesterday was “Social media is word of mouth on crack” (I believe original credit for this goes to Scott Seaborn), and if you’re not sure what that means just ask Domino’s Pizza. It can work both ways though, as smart brands will use social media to involve and cultivate a fan base as well as to identify risks and improve their products.

While the case for listening may be strong, the case against such monitoring tools was also a point of discussion with Asi Sharabi’s controversial blog post inspiring a lively panel debate. No solution (right now anyway) is perfect and the current limitations in technology are important to discuss, along with the many strengths and benefits. All this can only be advantageous as we move forward and the social media monitoring industry matures. Social media is fundamentally changing the way we do business, while change can often be a challenge, the social Web is here now for the long term and the sooner we can integrate it into our business intelligence solutions the sooner we can all profit from it.

MSM09 has already sparked a spirited conversation here at Moreover Towers, as we look to continue growing and innovating in the space, we’d love to hear from you if you attended the event or have any words of wisdom on the subject, if so drop us a line in the comments below!

Monitoring Social Media 09 is taking place in London early next week, a first of its kind event for Europe, bringing together leading marketing professionals, brand managers and the virtuosos in the field of Social Media Monitoring.

The Moreover delegation are ready and raring to go, with over ten years experience in the business of media monitoring we look forward to the joining in the debate and offering some intellect of our own. Key speakers include Matt Atkinson, CEO of EHS Brann, and Paul Alexander from Beyond Analysis with host Luke Brynley-Jones giving his views on the inspiration behind and aims of the event at ‘we are social’ blog here.

We’d love to hear from anyone else attending in the comments below, any particular highlights you are looking forward to? And should you be unable to attend remember to check-in at the Moreover Blog over the latter half of next week for our thinking and thoughts on what promises to be a very influential meeting.