Marketers Connect at Sold-Out Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit 2008

Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit 2008

Bazaarvoice, the worldwide leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, today announced the successful conclusion of its Social Commerce Summit 2008 in Austin, Texas. The first annual Bazaarvoice client and partner conference attracted more than 200 eCommerce executives, authors, researchers, and visionaries who are defining social commerce and pioneering new ways to use customer conversations and user-generated content to boost revenue, increase margins, and cut costs. The sold-out event received an average NetPromoter Score of 9.3 from attendees, meaning that 9 out of 10 would strongly recommend the event to a friend.

Over the course of two days, marketers in retail, travel, finance, and manufacturing connected with Bazaarvoice experts, partners, industry analysts, and each other to gain valuable best practices, case studies, and hands-on training for maximizing the ROI and results of user-generated content. Attendees were treated to thought-provoking keynotes from experts in social networking, user-generated content, and word of mouth marketing – Josh Bernoff, Bryan Eisenberg, Ed Keller, Kelly Mooney, Andy Sernovitz, and Ze Frank – and laughed along with the cutthroat Bazaarvoice partner haiku contest and world premiere of the Bazaarvoice “More Than Words” music video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FCnXCju-Ag).

“The Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit was one of the best conferences I’ve attended,” said Tom West, President and Chief Executive Officer, Whitney Automotive Group. “I came away with a solid understanding of the ways my marketing organization can continue to engage consumers and gain real ROI leveraging user-generated content and customer conversations. It was a completely engaging experience – I had some great conversation with other attendees, I got access to content that I really couldn’t get anywhere else, and I had fun doing it.”

Attendees participated in track sessions designed to provide marketers with the tools necessary to develop an integrated social commerce strategy, effectively leverage user-generated content to increase advertising and marketing impact, and measure the impact of UGC on their business. Bazaarvoice experts joined marketers from all over the globe in educating attendees on all aspects of a successful social commerce initiative including:
Accelerating customer-centric culture change within your business
Unleashing the power of your Influencers in the US – and around the globe
Integrating UGC in multi-channel marketing for effective results
Maximizing the value of the full range UGC available through Bazaarvoice: reviews, answers, stories, video, photos, tags, and more
Best practices and principles for attaining and measuring social commerce ROI, including strategies to attract new, high-value customers through SEO, and user-generated content
Increasing customer participation
Integrating word of mouth analytics with financial and web metrics to make profitable decisions
Maximizing return on social commerce investment through integration with Bazaarvoice partners Aggregate Knowledge, ATG, Coremetrics, Demandware, Endeca, ExactTarget, Experian Cheetahmail, IBM, Omniture, and Responsys.

Bazaarvoice also announced the first annual Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Awards, honoring clients in categories including Best Participation Campaign, Best Use of Negative Reviews, Best Use of UGC in Email, Best Multichannel Use of UGC, Best Proof of ROI, and a Social Commerce Achievement Award. The full list of Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Awards winners, as well as a more detailed Summit overview, is available at http://www.bazaarblog.com/2008/06/01/ heres-the-wrap-on-bazaarvoice-2008-social-commerce-summit/. (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.) Event presentations, pictures and video are also available at http://www.socialcommercesummit.com/.

“The Social Commerce Summit was at maximum capacity as the leaders in interactive marketing came together to share ideas and strategies in a world where people increasingly rely on the opinions of their peers to guide purchases,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “User-generated content has created a new norm for online shopping, making the Social Commerce Summit an incredibly exciting place to be. We want to thank everyone who attended, including our partners who not only made the event possible, but are valuable contributors to the social commerce community.”

About Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice offers outsourced technology, services, analytics, and expertise to help companies enhance the online shopping experience with social commerce applications that drive sales. Bazaarvoice Ratings & Reviews and Ask & Answer™ deliver immediate success by minimizing implementation risk and maximizing the strategic impact of user-generated review content through complete customization, deep integration, community management, advanced analytics, search engine optimization, and syndication across the Web and to offline channels.

Bazaarvoice was named to the 2007 Red Herring Global 100 and 2006 Red Herring Top 100 lists and received the 2006 ClickZ Marketing Innovation of the Year award. Bazaarvoice currently serves over 200 eCommerce leaders including JC Whitney, Bass Pro Shops, Dell, Macy’s, Office Depot, Inc., Overstock.com, PETCO, QVC, Sears, and ZipRealty. The company has headquarters in Austin, TX and offices in London, UK. For more information, please visit the company’s Web site at www.bazaarvoice.com, read the blog at www.bazaarblog.com, or email info {at} bazaarvoice(.)com.

Contacts

Bazaarvoice
Renee Newby, 757-651-6554
renee {at} bradypr(.)com