Earlier this week Amazon released something huge to the E-Commerce community, ‘Brand Pages’. A ‘Brand Page’ on Amazon allows a brand or brand rep to maintain online presence within the retailer’s site. This presence can showcase content, act as another social media outlet for the brand and, even more, provide analytics. This looks like a very neat cross between Pinterest and Facebook… we cannot wait to get our hands on it!

            A Brand Page is put on something Amazon calls a microsite. Within this microsite the brand can then cross-promote their social media efforts such as Facebook or Twitter. The Pages allow the brand to post simultaneously between Facebook and their page, schedule posts for the future and drive traffic to their products on Amazon.com. The products and posts will vary in how they are displayed from page to page. Amazon allows the brand to organize the content on their page with one of three different layouts: All Products, Posts with Merchandising, and Posts Only. Each layout focuses on a different aspect of the brand. This way, the business can tailor the page to fit their needs versus attempting to fill blank space. This makes it initially much more user friendly when compared with other social media outlets more commonly used today.

           Another aspect we are greatly looking forward to would be further interconnectedness between the other avenues of social media. We want to see if Brand Pages will turn into E-Commerce pages and what it can mean for Facebook. Facebook has yet to roll out a well-produced and well-managed E-Commerce application. While businesses cannot complete transactions within Facebook’s walls with a Facebook application, most savvy Social Media Marketers will figure out how to add an iFrame to a tab on a page. An iFrame will supply a viewing option for other webpages on Facebook giving the audience no need to leave the webpage. If Amazon and Facebook could potentially work together to create a specific E-Commerce application we would be in love! Until then, we may be adding an iFrame to our Facebook pages if Amazon Brand Pages add a shopping cart option!