REDWOOD SHORES, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 01/29/13 -- Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL)

News Facts

• Following the success of its Social Media Rally Stations for partners at Oracle OpenWorld, Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) today extended its leading enablement resources to include a new track on "Modern Marketing for Today's Digital World."
• According to the IDC's annual social business survey, June 2012, 67 percent of companies deployed social software for business activities, up significantly from 43 percent in 2011(1).
• While the value of social media and online communities is clear, many businesses are still struggling with "where to start" in building or further growing their brand online.
• The new enablement resource center, including a 12-week webcast series and library of valuable best-practice and how-to guides, is designed to help partners boost their brand presence online to further awareness, growth and business opportunities.
• Initial resources in the enablement series include enhancing your online profile, building a community on Twitter and LinkedIn, maximizing the benefits of Google AdWords and much more.
• As an added benefit to OPN members, authorized partners can use the Oracle ® trademark in their Google AdWords ads, to help further their reach online and optimize target results. For more information visit here.
• The Modern Marketing Resource center joins a wide range of OPN enablement tools geared to help partners create awareness and generate sales leads. Through OPN, partners have access to tools, trainings and best practices to help plan and deliver effective demand generation activities -- from basic email campaigns to seminars.
• Visit the Modern Marketing Resource center and Oracle marketing kits, designed to help partners accelerate growth opportunities and create demand generation programs around Oracle's key technologies.

Video Series Provides Partners Easy-Steps for Building their Online Brand

• The Modern Marketing Resource center will offer a three-track webcast series that provides partners with the foundation for building and growing a successful online community. Tracks include:
  • Laying the Foundation: to help partners create an online brand using resources to listen to prospects and customers, leveraging analytics to measure and refine techniques, and building out a complete profile to accurately showcase all of the services and products that a company has to offer.
  • Building an Online Presence: shows partners how to leverage social media platforms including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ to their fullest potential and turning these tools into lead generation machines.
  • Staging the Business for Success: will help partners complete their online presence through use of online forums, maximizing eBlasts, eBooks, and webinars to complement traditional marketing techniques which becomes a well-rounded marketing strategy.

Supporting Quotes

• "OPN's Modern Marketing Enablement series was designed to help customers see a more complete picture of a partner and the services and products they offer -- while helping partners, especially those in the mid-market, expand their marketing efforts and increase visibility across their key audiences," said Heather Margolis, President, Channel Maven Consulting. "Sharing social media best practices further demonstrates OPN's commitment to providing its partners with Enablement programs to expand their business and reach in the digital marketplace."
• "Social media channels continue to grow in importance as companies use them to communicate with their key constituents, as well as grow business opportunities," said Darren Bibby, Vice President, Channels and Alliances Research, IDC. "Oracle PartnerNetwork has long leveraged its social presence to effectively engage its partner community, and it is now extending that expertise to help its partners expand their awareness and business possibilities online."
• "Social media has become one of the most effective ways for Oracle to listen to and learn from our partner community. The strong response and interest we received for our OPN social "help" stations at Oracle OpenWorld signaled there is a great appetite amongst our partner community to learn more about building their social prowess to engage their own constituents and create new business opportunities," said Lydia Smyers, Group VP of Worldwide Alliances & Channels.

Supporting Resources

• Modern Marketing for Today's Digital World
• Oracle PartnerNetwork Blog on Modern Marketing
• Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN)
• OPN Specialized
• OPN Solutions Catalog
• Connect with the Oracle Partner community at OPN on Twitter, OPN on Facebook, OPN on LinkedIn, and OPN on YouTube.

About Oracle PartnerNetwork
Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized is the latest version of Oracle's partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialized offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle's growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specializations. Specializations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success. To find out more visit http://www.oracle.com/partners.

About Oracle
Oracle engineers hardware and software to work together in the cloud and in your data center. For more information about Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), visit www.oracle.com.

Trademarks
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

(1) IDC, The State of Enterprise Social Software Adoption in 2012, doc #236637, September 2012.

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