Amazon looks to users to socially-share their purchases

OK, I downloaded Aloe Blacc's "I Need a Dollar" covered by Pixie Lott.  Don't shoot me.

But what was more interesting was the fact that Amazon now allows me to share my purchase across Facebook, Twitter and e-mail.

This is the kind of retail social sharing that sites such as Blippy have built a business model around. Blippy is now known as the "Twitter of personal finance", facilitating discussion and comparison-shopping amongst its user base.

Amazon has been a pioneer in creating social content within the Amazon platform itself through user-based product reviews & customer discussions. However this new move allows Amazon to push content out into the establshed social networks.  And there are two key benefits.

The obvious one is greater brand visibility on Facebook/Twitter through increased social interactions.  But the second relates to search engine optimisation as social content becomes increasingly indexed and important to search algorithms.

I'm still not convinced that consumers want to share all their purchases socially  -  but we'll see.

And the Pixie Lott single was free.  Not that I am looking for an excuse, you know.