Conversation is the heart of change. It’s how we share questions, mix ideas, and challenge beliefs. When the right people understand and harness the power of conversation, the world moves forward. Bazaarvoice’s never-ending mission is to make that kind of change possible, and make customers’ voices heard across our clients’ organizations.

Our clients continue to define the social business landscape. At Bazaarvoice, we’re fortunate to look across thousands of brand sites, major social networks, and mobile computing trends to put our finger on the pulse of what customers want. There’s no better way to understand what your customers want on the outside than to understand them from the inside. Mike will highlight several new innovations based on the one of richest customer data assets a business can own – social data.

Customers have always been at the core of business, but there are more channels to reach them and learn about their opinions and behaviors than ever before thanks to social media. The power of truly knowing your customers will inform strategies that can impact your entire organization as you discover new ways to delight your customers.

Erin’s presentation will answer:
   • How do we integrate what we know about our customers socially into the traditional marketing engine?
   • Who is best positioned to unite the disparate tools and customer data streams to find the single voice of the customer?

In an age of high-speed living, big data, and info overload, visualized information has incredible potential to help us quickly understand, navigate, and find meaning in complex world. Daily exposure to the web is creating an information design-literate population who demand their information in visual form. In this talk, author David McCandless will unveil some of the interesting, unexpected, and sometimes magical things that happen when you visualize data, knowledge, and ideas.

Businesses that deliver excellent, helpful customer experiences before, during, and after a sale can pull customers into a “loyalty loop,” winning their repeat business. Brand leaders will share their experiences and strategies for attracting and retaining the best customers through social.

Success in social starts with well-organized programs and teams. Social heavy weights from several different industries will discuss how they organize, staff, and manage their social efforts to drive bottom line dollars.

Engaging customers effectively requires businesses to deliver the content customers want, when they want it. Representatives from leading brands will co-present the tactics and best practices that keep their customers engaged, contributing content, and buying their products.

Your social efforts are only as good as what you can measure. A panel of experts from various industries will share practices for measuring ROI on social investments, and discuss how they measure and report their success.

This leading manufacturer encourages all of their global brands to integrate the words of their customers throughout online, email, and in-store marketing. In this session, you’ll get an inspiring look at how the companies have revised their marketing, and see some of the business results they’ve enjoyed.

Social media monetizing has been a hot topic for a while now, with varying results for many marketers. Today, the social enterprise is emerging as a successful enabler across marketing, sales, product, and customer service. Experts will discuss how businesses can tap into social networks to drive higher ROI, loyalty, and customer acquisition across their initiatives.

Big data lets us understand and group customers like never before, letting us target precise messages specific to consumers’ wants and needs. Get an in-depth first look at the behavioral targeting and social WOM advertising solutions Bazaarvoice is developing, with real data and case studies from pilot clients.

Managing vendor relationships is critical to retail success, and social offers retailers new opportunities to cooperate with vendors and deliver better customer experiences. A major multichannel retailer will share their tactics for increasing sales by engaging their vendors through social.

Manufacturers have traditionally played influential roles during purchase research and post-sale support, but were noticeably absent at the retail level. But new social tools allow brands to have an active presence in the digital aisle – and they’re finding greater influence on sales. A large manufacturer will share case studies around how they’ve increased sales and deepened customer loyalty by helping shoppers find the information they need on retailer sites.

This holiday season, 56% of smartphone owners used their mobile devices to help them make purchase decisions while shopping in stores. Learn how companies and interactive agencies are innovating on this platform to capture faster, smarter sales.

A social thought leader will moderate a panel of enterprise software partners and top brands, as they discuss how social improves everything from the customer record in CRM to customer service business processes.

Consumer trust is the currency of our business – and yours. Working with you, our goal is to make sure all consumers are fully confident in the authenticity of the customer content that they encounter every day. In this session, we’ll explore how authentic, unedited content is the key to unlocking consumer trust. We’ll share some of the ways we’re fighting things like fraud, bias, and competitive gaming, and discuss what you need to do to protect consumers, and your brand.

Customer data can inform more strategic placement, stocking, and vendor negotiations. Two major retailers will discuss how incorporating social data into one of their most data-driven functions – retail merchandising – uncovered a plethora of revenue opportunities.

The Bazaarvoice network joins structured social data across an unparalleled network of Fortune 500 retailers and manufacturers. We’ll dive into the science behind the network, while top manufacturers share surprising insights the network uncovered for them, and how these insights will drive a maniacal focus on delighting customers.

Leading advertising industry experts will discuss the convergence of word of mouth content and paid advertising campaigns. Real-world examples will guide a high-level discussion around how earned media will drive paid media strategies in 2012 and beyond.