Amazon, as of my last knowledge update in September 2021, primarily focuses on e-commerce, cloud computing, and various other ventures such as artificial intelligence and entertainment (e.g., Amazon Prime, Amazon Web Services, Alexa). While they have integrated social elements into their platform, such as user reviews and customer forums, they have not pursued the development of a dedicated social network like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
The decision might be attributed to a few possible reasons:
- Specialization: Amazon’s core competency lies in e-commerce and cloud services. Focusing on these areas allows them to excel in what they do best.
- Market saturation and competition: Social networking is a highly competitive field, dominated by platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others. Introducing a new social network would require significant resources to establish a user base and compete effectively.
- Diversification of risks: Amazon may prefer diversifying its investments across different sectors rather than going all-in on a social networking platform.
- Privacy concerns: Creating a social network would mean handling large amounts of user data, which comes with significant privacy and security responsibilities. Amazon might have chosen to avoid this added complexity.
- Differentiation from existing platforms: Building a social network that stands out from existing giants in terms of features, user experience, and value proposition would be a significant challenge.
Previously on Amazon
Most likely, you didn’t know that Amazon has a social media platform called Spark. And you’d be in good company. With Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and a number of other huge platforms, it can be super difficult to compete in this space, even if you’re Amazon.
What is Spark?
Amazon describes Spark as “a feed of stories and photos from Amazon customers featuring products ready for purchase.” They encourage Spark users to post pictures, products, stories, etc. and gives them the ability to tag products in the process. Readers can then add hearts to the products they like, smiles to the posts they like, participate in polls, and comment on posts.
Amazon Spark advertising
Anyone can browse the Spark feed and read Spark posts. However, to post and engage with Spark you must be an Amazon Prime subscriber. From its beginning in 2017 Spark was only available on the Amazon Shopping mobile app. However, last month we discovered this new banner at the top of Amazon’s home page, just above the search bar, that will bring you to the new desktop version of Spark.
Amazon Prime header
Spark has been up and running for over a year now. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the platform, and how widely is it being used?
What have critics said about Spark?
Most of the reviews of the Spark platform have been negative and boil down to two major issues:
1. “Prime members only” limits users
As one writer asked, why would you limit the potential users of your social media platform? “Currently, Spark is only open to Prime members, of which there are an estimated 90 million in the USA. Amazon hasn’t exactly made a big push to get those members joining Spark at this stage, in fact, many probably aren’t even aware that the platform exists.” In terms of awareness of the platform’s existence, we can only guess as to why Amazon doesn’t advertise it more openly. The new banner on the home page doesn’t even include the title “Spark” anywhere on it.
2. Mobile only (formerly)
While this is no longer the case, in the past the Spark platform was hidden away under the “See all programs” menu in the Amazon Shopping mobile app. This certainly stifled the growth of the platform from its inception. However, after repeated use it would begin to show up on your sidebar menu for easier access. Additionally, after using Spark for a few days, Spark content, such as polls, started appearing as part of my home page on the mobile app.
What are the best ways to engage Spark users?
Spark allows you to make a few different types of posts:
Photo: Photos allow you to share any type of photo and lets you tag products that may be in our image.
Link: Allows you to share a URL of your choice. URLs linking to other offsite stores are prohibited. Many users use this to share their idea lists.
Poll: Create a poll between two items for other Spark users to vote on.
Product: Link to an Amazon product page
Question: Ask the community a question in big bold print.