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Amazon Posts: How the Beta Feature Drives Brand Growth
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Amazon introduced Posts beta in 2019 to offer brands and sellers greater social commerce capabilities on its marketplace. Posts replaced Spark, the retail giant’s initial move in providing shoppers social media features that drive brand discoverability and encourage conversions. Social commerce is evolving rapidly, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, as brands redirect their efforts toward their digital stores.
Consumers are now purchasing products through social media features more than ever before. A recent report by eMarketer revealed there were over 80 million U.S. social commerce buyers in 2020 and the number of buyers is projected to increase by 12.9%, in 2021. By 2023, it is anticipated there will be over 101 million social commerce buyers in the U.S.
Brands and sellers who are not leveraging Amazon’s social commerce functionality are missing out on a valuable growth opportunity. Learn what Amazon Posts is, the benefits of incorporating Posts into your business strategy, and how to start using the service.
What Is Amazon Posts?
Amazon Posts is a free social commerce feature that increases brand and product visibility across relevant audiences. Brands and sellers can use the tool to publish a stream of lifestyle images and engaging captions that showcase their products in a shoppable feed. Shoppers can look through multiple Posts and land on a seller’s product detail page by selecting an item that populated from the Show Product(s) tab.
The feature is visible to shoppers that are searching for products in your categories. Posts appear in a category feed, related products feed, on product listings, and in your own brand’s feed. As of now, you are not able to choose the placement of your Posts. Amazon’s algorithm automatically determines the area in which your Posts will be displayed based on relevancy and engagement.
Posts is a simple and effective method to be discovered by consumers who shop on Amazon.com. Brands may not only gain new customers but they can also improve the shopper experience for their existing customers by providing rich content that is easy to consume. Amazon sellers who sign up for the service are able to create Posts as frequently as they would like.
Incorporate Posts Into Your 2021 Strategy
Amazon’s marketplace is significantly crowded, making it difficult to stand out among an influx of competitors. Amazon Posts is a powerful tool for driving visibility in a similar way that Amazon Advertising can and should be used in conjunction with ad campaigns. Leveraging Posts allows you to secure additional Amazon real estate that you would not have had access to otherwise. The boost in exposure will help you reach more audiences, which can subsequently increase your sales.
However, greater visibility is not enough to entice shoppers to convert. The Posts in your feed must contain high-quality lifestyle images and content that conveys your brand identity while accurately describing your product. This is an opportunity to showcase your brand story outside of your product detail pages and Amazon Store. Enhanced content may inspire consumers who are not familiar with your brand to purchase an item from your catalog and existing customers will likely appreciate the elevated shopping experience and continue to make repeat purchases.
Amazon also provides brands and sellers data insights to measure the performance of their Posts. You will be able to view impressions, clicks, and click-through rates for every entry and determine opportunities for improvement. We recommend repurposing your social media content (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more) to include the criteria mentioned above and test the messaging to get an understanding of which Posts typically perform well.
The growth of social commerce is remarkable and it is only expected to rise in the coming years. Incorporating Amazon Posts into your 2021 strategy will help you adjust to the new consumer behavior, increase discoverability across relevant audiences, strengthen your brand identity, and can ultimately improve your bottom line.
How to Sign Up
Posts is free and accessible on the Amazon shopping app and online through mobile devices. The service is available in the United States to sellers, vendors, and agencies (representing vendors) who are enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry. You are not required to advertise on Amazon in order to qualify, but you must be selling on its marketplace. Amazon DSP users are also able to use Posts if they have an advertising console account in addition to their DSP account.
If you are eligible, follow the steps provided to begin using Posts:
- Visit the Amazon Posts webpage.
- Sign in with your Seller or Vendor Central credentials.
- Create a profile by verifying your brand name.
- Upload your brand’s logo.
- Start creating Posts instantly.
Final Thoughts
Social commerce is on the rise and it is anticipated that the new buyer behavior will be long-lasting. Brands and sellers should take advantage of Amazon’s shoppable social media capabilities as it is currently a free service. Since Posts is a beta feature, Amazon will likely add new functions and may monetize the tool in the future.
Leveraging Posts will enable you to reach more audiences who are active searching for products in your category, provides an additional medium to showcase your brand story, will improve the shopper experience by generating rich content through an integrated social feature, and may in turn boost conversions from new and existing customers.
Learn what Feedvisor can do for your business.
When you partner with Feedvisor, you automatically receive access to our true, AI-driven technology and hands-on team of e-commerce experts. Contact one of our team members today to learn more about our end-to-end solution for brands and large sellers on Amazon, Walmart, and e-marketplaces.