Amazon has expanded its partnership with Twitter via a new hashtag function that lets customers to add items to their Amazon Wish List without leaving the social network.
When Amazon customers discover a Tweet from their favourite artist, expert, brand, or friend with an Amazon.com product link, can now add “#AmazonWishList” to the reply on Twitter and the product is added to their Amazon Wish List.
“Twitter offers Amazon customers a great environment for inspiration and discovery,” said John Yurcisin, Director of Social at Amazon. “#AmazonWishList makes it easy for people to quickly add holiday gifts, décor or entertaining items tweeted by interesting people, friends, or brands on Twitter to their Amazon Wish List, allowing customers to simply save items to their Wish List and keep on Tweeting.”
Customers who have already connected their Twitter and Amazon.com accounts will be notified with a reply Tweet from @MyAmazon as well as an email from Amazon when the item is successfully added to their Wish List.
Customers who have not connected their Twitter and Amazon.com accounts will receive a reply Tweet asking them to connect their accounts to enable the new feature. To edit connection preferences, Amazon customers can visit www.amazon.com/social.
One in three Amazon customers added items to wishlists last year, the company noted.
The company also rolled out a “save-a-photo” feature for wishlists on Wednesday, allowing customers to take a photo and add it to a wishlist.
In addition to the more common use of social media to communicate with customers and promote products, Amazon created the ability to add items to shopping carts through tweets with an #AmazonCart hashtag earlier this year.
Amazon has yet to go as far as allowing direct purchases from within Twitter, but that could be just a hashtag away.
Twitter itself has also invested in social shopping. Twitter announced earlier this month that it is testing a “buy” button option for its mobile advertisers. Facebook is also testing a “buy” button.