Oracle Corp. has made a big push in the social media technology space over the past year. It snapped up Vitrue, a provider of social media content and distribution technology, and announced plans to acquire Collective Intellect, a cloud-based, social media monitoring and data analytics company.

The technology is “allowing our customers to build communities to engage with their target audiences and manage all of that data,” said Judith Sim, CMO at Oracle.

Oracle's offerings enable marketers to track social media events down to the tonality of users' response to a particular campaign message. That can help Oracle's customers better schedule social media activity and predict future behavior. “That's the secret in the sauce,” Sim said.

The company put its technology to work at the recent Oracle OpenWorld 2012 in San Francisco, which drew about 50,000 attendees. In addition to music performances and tours of Oracle Team USA's America's Cup Pavilion, which will be home to the 2013 America's Cup races, this year's event included a Customer Experience Summit. Oracle also offered digital tools, such as an online schedule builder, to provide a more personalized experience for attendees. Oracle will conduct 8,538 events globally this year.

Oracle continues to be bullish about its products, such as its Engineered Systems line of data storage devices, which it promoted through a tie-in with Marvel Studios' “The Avengers.” It also promoted its Engineered Systems line, which includes the Exadata Database Machine, in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, other newspapers, trade magazines and online publications.

The company makes bold claims about its technology. “Exadata 5X faster than IBM or you win $10,000,000,” reads copy in one ad, which ruffled a few rivals' feathers. “We made a bit of a ripple with our statement,” Sim said. “We don't mind being aggressive.”

Oracle demonstrated the same confidence in its sponsorship of “The Avengers.” Similar to its sponsorship of Marvel's “Iron Man” two years ago, Oracle used the film as a fun tie-in, with its various cloud and data products powering the superheroes' world headquarters. One ad read: “Assembled for Super Power,” picturing the heroes with the machine.

“We'll probably do one more campaign with Marvel,” Sim said. “It's been a big win for us.”