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Hello everyone, in this week’s update we are going to talk
about Amazon!
In a few short years, buying anything from the internet was
not safe; also there wasn't much to buy. Amazon emerged with the help of the
internet and became extremely successful in this online sector. The company was
founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and it is the largest internet-based retail
company of the world, currently headquartered in Seattle, Washington – USA. The
company started selling books and rapidly began selling other products, like
CDs, DVDs, Softwares and toys. Amazon also produces electronics and cloud
computing devices, but this post will primarily focus on the retail sector and
marketing and sales.
Social technologies for marketing and communication
Based on McKinsey’s Social Media Levers, Amazon does a good
job in popular social media, like Facebook (25M likes) and Twitter (1.4M
followers), posting relevant information, products and deals every day. The company
is also present in Google Plus and Pinterest, but Amazon wasn't an early
adopter of social media, in 2010 the company already had millions of customers
but there wasn't any connection between them, and the main website sported many
aspects that could have been improved. In 2011 Amazon hired John Yurcisin as a director
of social media to help build Amazon’s new successful social strategy. In the same year, Amazon started showing the
same products bought by other people, based on your cart or recent searches,
also they started adding Facebook and Twitter buttons to the Kindle ecosystem,
allowing users to post public notes about what they were reading. The company
has also integrated Facebook with its
marketplace, allowing the customer to discover new movies and musics based on
the customer’s profile, find birthday’s wish list more easily, gift suggestions
and similar interests.
As we can see in the chart below, the net income of the company is basically the same year after year, but that’s because the company always focused in long term growth. This is good because the company can spend money in new areas, discovering new technologies and marketing initiatives.
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Last year a study(Dusto, 2014) showed that shoppers who were brought from
social media referral websites increased 42%. Amazon understood that and recently,
the company extended its shopping cart to Twitter,
after a very fast and one time only setup, the customer is able to add products
to the cart by replying tweets using a hashtag #AmazonCart. This is a clever
step forward due the fact that what appears in your twitter is very relevant
and also promotes Amazon service in the same time. This function allow you to
buy something really fast, your friends are able to see what you are buying and
interact with you, plus the company make free advertising for itself, just
brilliant! These social marketing campaigns are even more successful due the fact that Amazon sells pretty much anything, since computers to live insects(!). In addition, Amazon could implement an anonymous “recommended”
section just like Netflix does, which basically shows digital content that your
friends watch, without citing names.
References
Barr, A. (2014). Amazon steps up social media efforts. Reuters. Retrieved 10 September 2014, from http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/07/uk-amazon-social-idUSLNE78603W20110907
Dusto, A. (2014). Social Media - Retailers focus on social media results - Internet Retailer.Internetretailer.com. Retrieved 10 September 2014, from http://www.internetretailer.com/2014/03/11/retailers-focus-social-media-results
MacDonald, B. (2014). 4 Ways Amazon's New Facebook Integration Impacts eCommerce.Blog.hubspot.com. Retrieved 10 September 2014, from http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/9309/4-Ways-Amazon-s-New-Facebook-Integration-Impacts-eCommerce.aspx
Richter, F. (2013). Infographic: Amazon's Aggressive Growth Strategy. Statista Infographics. Retrieved 10 September 2014, from http://www.statista.com/chart/1126/amazons-aggressive-growth-strategy/
