The Social Commerce Awards recognize the companies that are transforming their business with Bazaarvoice. Past winners include Helzberg Diamonds, Intuit/TurboTax, JC Whitney, and Sephora. This year's categories are:

• Rookie of the Year Award (2) – These two companies are new on the social scene and pioneering social strategy in their own ways.
• Social Commerce Play of the Year Award – This company ran a really interesting and innovative social campaign that made customers and the industry stand up and take notice.
• Social Commerce Rockstar Award – This company understood that success must be measured. Their campaign or strategy directly related to a bottom-line goal, and they nailed it.
• Social Commerce MVP Award – This company used the power of their most influential customers to create a bigger conversation that attracted a whole new group of people to engage with their brand. Success is defined as how many new customers they attracted and how they kept the conversation alive and kicking.
• Customer Oxygen Award – This company used the customer voice to make huge changes throughout the business. Leveraging user-generated content changed their day-to-day business habits, and produced measurable results across the organization.

Want more information? Think your company has the story to win an award? Talk to your Client Success Director to learn more and to nominate your brand! Nominations are open until March 25th, and winners will be announced April 21, 2010.

Attendees will hear all about the amazing results manufacturers and retailers have seen with BrandVoice by way of increased review volume and sales metrics.
While we know that products with more customer reviews sell better, just 15% of products are reviewed on retailer sites, on average. BrandVoice enables manufacturers to collect UGC on their sites, then syndicate it to retailers, who get this content for free. When Kingston syndicated reviews to OfficeDepot.com, Kingston reviews increased tenfold and conversion for reviewed products doubled. It’s a win-win.

Our thanks go to the Shop.org retailers, who selected us as one of the winners. We look forward to seeing you all at the Forum!

Two years ago, we were honored to win ClickZ's Marketing Excellence award for Ratings & Reviews, and last year we were recognized by Austin Business Journal for most innovative software award for Ask & Answer. And this morning I was greeted with a pleasant Google alert that Ask &  Answer just won ClickZ's 2008 Marketing Excellence Award for Social Media Marketing!

We pride ourselves on building innovative social software and services that drive measureable results, and are honored to receive recognition like this. The judge's comment reads: "User-generated content is the killer app for all Web sites, and Bazaarvoice is the hands-down leader in driving innovation in this space. Social networking is only viable for the few. Rating, reviews, and comments are there for all to capitalize on, and Bazaarvoice has made it easy for all to get in the game."

We've wrapped ourselves under the term "Social Commerce" because social media marketing programs should impact the P&L (now, more than ever). Whether through measurable client case studies or awards, we're thrilled to see Ask & Answer recognized for making a difference.

Here's the press release, and a snippet:

Bazaarvoice, the market and technology leader in hosted social commerce applications that drive sales, today announced that it has received an Austin Business Journal “Tech Innovation” award for its hosted Ask & Answer™ service. The award recognizes Bazaarvoice for pioneering an important new way for multichannel businesses to tap into the social nature of the shopping experience to drive sales, satisfaction, and loyalty. Bazaarvoice manages social commerce capabilities for more than 150 leading online businesses including Bass Pro Shops, Dell, Macy’s, Overstock.com, PETCO, QVC, Sears, and ZipRealty.

Bazaarvoice was presented with the award, sponsored by Eureka Software, on Thursday, November 29 at a ceremony held at the Sheraton Austin Hotel. Bazaarvoice was selected as a finalist for the award from among dozens of Austin-based software companies, and then chosen as a winner by the public.

Let us know if you want a demo. Email info@bazaarvoice.com. We already have conversion and call reduction case studies…very exciting!