The relationship between the online retailer and the social network will see users becoming able to add products to their shopping carts by tweeting a special hashtag.
They can do so by replying to tweets containing a link to an Amazon product with #amazoncart in the US and #amazonbasket in the UK. Users will still then need to go to Amazon to pay and complete the purchase.
The move comes as firms continue to look at ways to best utilise social media platforms as tools to attract customers. "Ultimately it is all about conversations that people are having on various platforms such as Twitter and Facebook about what interests them," said Sanjana Chappalli, Asia-Pac head of LEWIS Pulse, a firm specialising in digital marketing. "Brands are keen to tap into these platforms, not least because they have hundreds of millions of active users."
Chappalli added that the tie-up with Amazon was likely to help Twitter engage its users better and as result attract more advertisers. "For Twitter the revenue model is based on not just on the number of active users, but also on how much time those users spend on the platform. This deal provides them a good chance to leverage on other sites such as Amazon to help push the engagement rates up."
