Buy it with a #Hashtag!

February 12, 2013

Have you ever tweeted about wanting a new bag, or the latest bit of gadgetry, or pined over a pretty bit of jewellery? Well now if you tweet about it you may very well be able to own it with Twitter’s new partnership with American Express. Twitter has made a bold new venture into e-commerce with the card merchant which aims to unlock the purchasing power of the hashtag. American Express card members can now tweet hashtags to buy products on Twitter.

Although the micro-blogging site has yet to comment on the new development, American Express has released a statement explaining the process.

“Card members who sync their eligible Cards at sync.americanexpress.com/twitter and tweet special hashtags to buy a range of items such as American Express Gift Cards, products from Amazon, Sony, Urban Zen and Xbox 360.”

(Click here for the full press release…

https://about.americanexpress.com/news/pr/2013/sync-to-buy.aspx)

This expansion into e-commerce comes after the success of Amex Sync offers on Twitter. The site certainly seems to be following in the steps of Facebook who has already entered into e-commerce with Facebook gifts and the want it button on various brand pages in the US. With e-commerce expected to grow by more than 19% a year, this could potentially be a masterstroke by Twitter.

Until now Twitter had largely made its money via advertising and marketing. However this venture with American Express suggests that they are looking for more ways to monetize the site. With a promoted hashtag costing $200,000 a day to run, this new venture could potentially be a great opportunity for smaller businesses using Twitter to make money. With e-commerce being an ever growing part of our purchasing behaviour this is an interesting development that could give many business opportunities…

Graph courtesy of Retail Touch Points, How Big is E-Commerce

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