Amazon: Becoming

a Personable Brand

Socialbakers a.s. has no affiliation whatsoever with the presented brand and is only processing and analyzing publicly available data from social media platforms concerning the brand. This document is based on publicly available data only.
Introduction
02
Amazon has grown from an online bookstore to a massive electronic and cloud computing
company, operating in the United States and 45 other countries. Amazon ranks 15th on Forbes
Global Top 2000 List1 which names the worlds most powerful companies. The retail giant,
continues to expand, tapping into emerging industries such as consumer electronics, video
streaming, and music downloads.

Since e-commerce companies are not able to communicate with their customers in person, it has
become crucial to develop social media tactics to connect with their online audiences and solve
customer inquiries. To address these challenges, Amazon has adapted an outstanding social
media content strategy using Facebook and Instagram to provide their brand with a human
voice and connect with their communities. To meet their customers where they are, they have
taken to Twitter - using a separate account to solve inquiries and questions. As a whole,
the online retail giant has seamlessly integrated cyberculture into their brand personality, using
social media to bond with their audience - showcasing their humorous one-of-a-kind products.
We took a look at Amazons social media performance from October, 2015 - 2016 to unveil their
best practices, which any company can apply.

Forbes: The Worlds Largest Retailers 2016

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Key Takeaways
03

Facebook Twitter Instagram

Develop a unified brand voice across Solve customer inquiries on a separate account Speak the language of your audience and social
your social media profiles dedicated to customer care media channel

Post content designed to entertain and Understand your audience demographics and
not only sell for a balanced strategy create content with them in mind

Measure your content results by quality

interactions such as Share and Reactions

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The Rise of E-commerce
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According to Emarketer, Global Retail e-commerce brands are projected to reach $27 trillion in sales
by 20202. It is likely that social media will increasingly be used as a driving force to influence sales and
raise awareness of products and promotions. We took a look at the the top 50 e-commerce and retail
companies from Q2 2016 on Facebook and found that e-commerce are leading the way - earning 3 times
more interactions than retail companies. Amazon is among these top companies - earning over an average
of 170,000 interactions per month3. So what is the secret behind their quality content, and how do they use
Facebook and Instagram to engage their community and boost sales?

Facebook Tapping into Cyberculture

Amazons collection of products and services are vast, which is why they have used social media to narrow
in on products that their audience will find interesting. The products that Amazon posts on social media
are impossible to find unless you are searching for a specific keyword. Amazon does the digging for their
audiences and even shares a collection of unique items accompanied by #AmazonReviews hashtag.
The description text consists of a quote from a customer review about a bizarre item - and always includes
a link in case their social media audience is inspired to buy.

2
EMarketer
3
Data analyzed from October 20, 2015 - October 20, 2016 using Socialbakers Analytics

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This strategy has proven to be successful, sparking high levels of interactions. For example,
this organic post received the highest amount of engagement for the entire year from October
2015 - October 2016. The post was shared over 13,000 times and received the years record
for Ha Ha Reactions, reaching over 2,000. There are several reasons why this post was
so successful. Firstly, Amazon leveraged the internets obsession with cats. Viral content
patterns show that animals are a clear winner4 because they evoke strong emotional reactions.
Secondly, Amazon uses a quote from a customer review in the description text, which creates
a sense of authenticity - showing that their buyers are enjoying even the silliest of products.

Though Facebook has given users the ability to express themselves with Reactions, 95% of people
around the world are still clicking Like. While there are many reasons that can explain this
behavior, it is apparent that certain content is worth more than a Like and data shows that
audiences will go out of their way to React to quality content. Reactions are important; they give
marketers the ability to measure audience sentiment and track their most engaging posts so
they can continue to create themes that have proven to be successful.

Social media goals for every company will differ. Though Amazon does feature obvious sales
related posts, they balance their content strategy with posts designed to entertain. These
posts may not explicitly promote a promo code, sale, or discount, however they still draw
attention to products in a clever way. Amazon always includes a link to their product even
in their most comical of posts which helps increase website conversions.

Digital Trends: From Culture Overload to Social Petworks, Adorable Animals Own The Web Tip: Always include a hyperlink every time you feature one of your products to drive traffic to your website.

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Facebook Prime-ing to the Top

Amazon uses a humorous tone across all of their social media channels, which creates a consistent
theme of content that their social media audiences can count on. Videos are Amazons most
dominate post type, which make up nearly 67% of their entire content and 66% of their total
interactions. Amazon has identified which content their community appreciates most, and has
developed a strategy that has resulted in a steady stream of interactions.
Distribution of Page Post Types Oct 20, 2015 - Oct 20, 2016
Among their photos are a series of Amazon Prime Memes. Again, Amazon is using popular
internet communication methods to create content that their audience can relate to. Business
Insider recently estimated that 22% of Amazons customers are Prime members5, with a majority
of subscribers over the age of 40. This explains why Amazon uses Facebook as their primary
channel to post content that is specifically directed at their Prime audience, as opposed to
Instagram where the users are predominantly between the ages of 18 - 296. Amazon has
successfully tapped into the interests of their audiences and has developed different strategies
for each of their platforms.

Count Share

Videos 1.1k 66.54%

Photos 370 23.18%

Links 111 6.95%

Others 53 3.32%

Graph from Socialbakers Analytics

Tip: Each of your social media channels will attract different audiences. Seek to identify the demographics
of your social media audiences and determine what they look for in your product or service. Doing this
will help you to create a channel-specific tone and tailored content that your audience will appreciate,
which will result in high interactions.

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Business Insider: Older People Are More Loyal to Amazon Prime
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PEW Research: The Demographics of Social Media Users

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Instagram Throwing it Back to the 90s
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Amazons Instagram strategy seeks to attract a younger audience. They use the language
of their communities, incorporating Instagram specific hashtags such as #TBT (Throw Back
Thursday - a designated hashtag for when social media users post older photos). Amazons
Instagram account regularly uses nostalgia to target their Millennial segments, often
posting products and services specific to the 90s era. Though Amazon still features their
#AmazonReviews hashtag series, they reserve Thursdays for their younger audiences who
have a childhood attachment to long lost snacks and products.

Using Instagram to appeal to Millennials is a strategic move, especially because this group
is the largest living generation on record, with a growing purchasing power7. According to
Entrepreneur, 89% of Millennials connect to the internet on mobile devices8, and primarily
use social media as a source to inform them about new products and promotions. Overall, this
shows the increasing importance social media plays in directing traffic to company websites,
which demonstrates the necessity of a mobile first strategy. Companies should strive to ensure
a smooth buyers journey across all of their digital platforms, fit for any electronic device.

Tip: Creating content for each generation can be a challenge, especially since specific segments are
attracted to different platforms. Get more of Socialbakers quick tips to help you engage with your
audiences across generations.

7
Nielsen: Brands That Are Building Momentum With Millennials
8
Entrepreneur: Shopping Habits of Millennials All Retailers Need to Know About

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Twitter Tweeting for Customer Service 08
Customer service is growing on social media with companies fielding millions of customer Socially Devoted
inquiries on Twitter and Facebook. Amazon is no stranger to social customer service and
has built their reputation on their ability to accommodate their customers. Amazon Help,
Response Rate for User Questions
is an entirely separate Twitter profile that is responsible for responding to customers.
In the past year, Amazon Help has received over 100,000 customer questions, and
responded to 67% of queries with an average response rate of 48 minutes. Thats 7 hours
faster than the average Question Response Time for e-commerce companies on Twitter9.
The brand has demonstrated that they understand the importance of customer care, going Responded 71.4k
above and beyond traditional customer care tactics. Furthermore, implementing a different
account solely for the purpose of social customer care allows Amazons main account to center
Unresponded 33.6k
their focus around the content that they create, filtering out customer related tweets.

Tip: Find out if your company is excelling at social customer care on Facebook and Twitter with our free
social customer care meter!

Number of User Questions Avg Response Time

105k 0 : 00 : 48
Questions Days Hours Minutes

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Socialbakers data was collected from 6,299 e-commerce companies on Twitter from Q3 2016

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Conclusion
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Amazon strategically creates content for their media channels to connect with their different
target audiences, while consistently using a humorous tone. Speaking the language of their
customers has led to a high volume of quality interactions such as Reactions and Shares,
which is the greatest form of feedback. After All, these interactions provide valuable insight
into your communitys emotions and expand your contents reach.

Amazon is among the top global e-commerce retail brands, and has successfully been able
to integrate social media into their wider business strategy, using social media platforms
as a means to showcase their products while simultaneously entertaining their community.
This is something that any company can aspire to, in order to drive traffic to their website,
generate sales, and grow their communities. Amazon has used social media to create a specific
personality that has given their brand a human voice, enabling them to overcome the limitations
of operating solely online.

Social media has provided many advantages that can be adopted by companies of any
kind, especially in terms of customer care. To provide better service to their customers,
while keeping a clean content stream on their main channels, companies can create
customer-care oriented profiles. This is just one of the many ways companies can use
the advantages of social media to reach their customers where they are.

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Socialbakers a.s. has no affiliation whatsoever with the presented brand and is only processing and analyzing publicly available data from social media platforms concerning the brand. This document is based on publicly available data only.