To educate the industry on social media's ability to form better customer relationships and compel companies to innovate (typically through scathing consumer reviews and other "insights"), the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) is holding a one-day conference, "Transform Your Research by Listening: West Coast Edition."

"In social media, people talk about their needs, lifestyles, and brand preferences in their own words, so we refer to this form of research as 'listening'," explained Chief Research Officer Joel Rubison.

The conference takes place in San Francisco on January 27th. Attendees can expect to glean wisdom from topics that include Twitter and Facebook. ARF's new "Research Transformation" initiative — led by Procter & Gamble, Unilever, GM, Microsoft, Levi's, Nielsen and WPP — will also be discussed.

According to ARF, Phase I of the Research Transformation's mission is to "[demonstrate] how to utilize social media for new insights to the industry."

Barack Obama pollster Joel Benenson and author Charlene Li of Groundswell will also speak, in addition to representatives from Intel, Clorox and Crispin, Porter + Bogusky — which is currently managing Microsoft's $300 million advertising account.

A recent survey found that while most marketers confess they still don't know enough about it, most are sick of hearing about "web 2.0" and all related iterations, including blogging and social networking.