May 6, 2014
As pressure increases on Twitter to monetize their platform through developing an already powerful targeted tweets and promoted post service. The platform, having recently undergone a major design re-haul, has now stepped up a further development to attract retailers to promote their products and retail campaigns directly into their content feeds.
Introducing #AmazonBasket, a new way to add products to your Amazon shopping cart while browsing on Twitter. If you see a product you like with an Amazon web link you can simply reply with #AmazonBasket and the product will be automatically added to your basket, ready to be purchased later! Meaning you no longer have to leave the platform or open a new app in order to shop for items you spot on Twitter.
Not the first Twitter-Brand retail partnership by any means as earlier this year American Express joined forces with the platform to reward card members who tweeted special offers or promotions with rewards points on further products or services using a series of #Amex headed hashtags. An emerging trend for forward thinking brands intent on activating the social benefits of a partnership between Twitter’s fast pace and a speedy sale.
This is obviously great news for brands who are keen to connect their products or make special offers to their audiences through Twitter, offering an even wider scope for B2C marketing and online retail reach. The partnership between the two platforms may however raise questions as to how brands who are independently retailing products without the Amazon platform change their strategy and whether they may have to ‘step up their game’. Or will this spell a way for brands to maintain their independence and keep their product availability niche and limited?
The service, however is only available to those willing to connect their Amazon and Twitter accounts, done through Amazon profile settings so the scope of audience brands may target within Twitter will initially be quite mainstream, but this change in social shopping definitely lays the way for new opportunities to discover and collect products in a new context. The question is, does this have the potential to be the ‘farmers market’ of social media retail or simply the ‘Supermarket – bulk delivery service’?