Influencer marketing plays an increasingly integral part of brands pushing their products online. A recent survey revealed that 84% of marketers plan on executing at least one influencer marketing campaign during the next 12 months.
Social media influencers can generate large amounts of income endorsing products. This happens through their Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat or YouTube accounts.
And now Amazon, with its recently released Amazon Influencer Program, gets in on the act.
What Is the Amazon Influencer Program?
According to Amazon, it’s an exclusive program that’s not open to everyone. You need a large following and a high frequency of posts with shoppable content to get accepted.
The program allows influencers to earn commission on products sold. Currently it’s in beta mode and open by invitation only.
Influencers interested in joining the program can apply in 3 steps:
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List the URLs of your social media accounts in Amazon’s Public Profile Page Settings
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Verify your email address is correct in Amazon’s Account Settings
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Due to the recency and high volume of interest, Amazon will get back to influencers to invite them to join. And it will consider those with “large followings” first.
How Do I Qualify as an Influencer in Amazon’s Eyes?
There is no clear cut-off in terms of the number of followers you need to generate to receive an invitation. It depends on a variety of different factors. Some include post engagement, content, and the level of relevancy on Amazon.
How Is This Different From Amazon Affiliates/Amazon Associates Program?
The Amazon Influencer program specifically caters to the needs of social media influencers. The Amazon Associates Program, in turn, caters to affiliates with websites.
The key difference at the moment is the exclusivity. Anyone can sign up to become an Amazon Affiliate. That allows you to create links and shopping ads that you can use on your own website or blog. When a visitor clicks to buy a product, the affiliate earns a commission on those sales.
Influencers, however, need to apply to be considered for the program. Amazon will send the influencer an acceptance email with a vanity URL. Then the influencer can then share this URL across their social media, and then gets paid when a shopper buys an item through that link.
Also, it makes it easier for shoppers to easily browse through products the influencer has recommended. As Amazon hosts the site, it makes for a better shopping experience. It’s much quicker for the influencer to set up rather than build their own website.
It’s still unclear whether the influencer program will pay higher than the Amazon Associates Program.
Is Amazon Helping Influencers With Product Selection?
Not at the moment. Amazon isn’t providing free products to accepted influencers. The products must be chosen by the influencer.
Brands already looking to work with influencers could have their products featured on the influencer’s Amazon page.
How Can I as an Amazon Seller Take Advantage of This?
Sellers with established influencer relationships can feature their products on Amazon’s Influencer Page. Amazon isn’t directly involved in this process.
Keep this in mind if you’re launching a new product. For example, you could have the influencer review your product on YouTube. Or give you a shout on Instagram. Or simply throw you a tweet.
Then either link to your product and/or include your product on their Amazon Influencer Page.
Depending on the number of products they feature, a placement could mean more sales. It remains too early to tell, as only a small group of influencers have joined.
While it’s aimed at influencers with large followings, it could open up to other groups of influencers in the future.
This will help widen the pool for influencers for sellers to work with.
Before you work with an influencer, it’s important to identify your target audience. Related to that, you need to define influencer marketing goals. Having this clear, will help you generate more sales and build larger brand presence.
How would you best leverage the Amazon Influencer Program? Got any strategies or ideas? Let us know below!
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