The Impact of Social Media on the Business Operations of Amazon

This essay sheds light on the social media influence on contemporary business communication and the way these transformations have affected the operations of modern business processes. The paper evaluates the evolution of business communication over past 20 years and the identification of social media usage on core business organization such as ‘Amazon’.

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INTERPERSONAL AND E-COMMUNICATION
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There is an enduring rise in social networking along with the impact of social media that
infiltrates into every form of business. Social media are often implemented as a source of
information and knowledge distribution that alters the perceptions and opinions of people. The
concept of social media is regarded as a world phenomenon that has been utilized by over
milliard people and further provides an interface for communication with individuals, business
and communication whereby people further develop, create, distribute and further exchange
relevant data and ideas (Schermerhorn et al. 2014). Social media being a form of e-
communication such as websites related to social networking as well as micro blogging has
enabled users to create online communities to distribute information, ideas and develop
interpersonal communication. The vitality of interpersonal communication is not restricted to
interpersonal associations but rather it holds immense significance in business domains.
Organizations who intend to establish connection with stakeholders and customers must have
relevant insights into the ways the factors related to interpersonal psychology while social media
usage might wield influence on their client associations (Drucker 2017). The thesis statement of
this essay is “influence of social media on the business operations of Amazon”. The aim of this
paper is to shed light on the social media influence on contemporary business communication
and the way these transformations have affected the operations of modern business processes. In
addition to this, the essay will further evaluate the evolution of business communication over
past 20 years and the identification of social media usage on core business organization such as
‘Amazon’.
The world of business has undergone a massive refurbishment over the past two decades.
The ways in which business market to consumers and further involve in business transactions has
developed a new and improved life of its own (Rosemann and vom Brocke 2015). The general

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prevalence public usage of the Internet twenty years before was at its initial stage. Gradually,
organizations namely Amazon, Google emerged as primary centres of contemporary commerce
in the digital realm. Processes like search engine optimization, social networking sites, social
bookmarking along with other forms of digital interchange generation have evolved (Schivinski
and Dabrowski 2016). Such processes have great existence in today’s date as a core basis of
operation in an enduring endeavour in order to rise the digital based sales degree. Digital
communication has transformed business in the development of making increased business profit
with to acquire higher rate of customers and improve the quality of product and services (Aral,
Dellarocas and Godes 2013). Internet considered as the driving factor behind recent globalization
facilitates in eradicating physical borders trouble that further distance inherently provides, thus
Internet has paved the way to create an international marketplace along with further necessity of
reasonable and effective way of communication. Social media being the future of technology for
over a decade or two is currently regarded as the technology of the present (Agnihotri et al.
2016). Social media has been expanding in its propensity further enabling organizations to have
accessibility to consumers and stakeholders when companies are face risks and challenges or
other vulnerable positions (Tuten and Solomon 2017). The implementation of social media has
been regarded as a business method to develop associations and validate established relationships
that will bring success to business. Internet not only exterminates the link of geographical
boundaries, one notable digital service, which is the cloud technology, alleviate business to
enhance employee proficiency and creativity whilst facilitating the competence to sustain regular
operations that would have demanded physical presence. The later phase of 1990 gave rise to the
first series of smart phone such as Nokia 9000 communicator (Hajli 2014). Smart phone along
with application driven commerce has become an essential factor of contemporary business

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communication. Starting from apps that exhibit company products to several applications that
offer broad range of payment methods, customers, stakeholders and business owners alike are
practically incompetent to function without smart phones and social media and other digital
media (Hennig-Thurau, Hofacker and Bloching 2013). Thus, the immense influence of
technology or modern innovation on business is unavoidable. Significant changes have occurred
within the domain of modern business in the past two decades because of the occurrence of
recent innovation.
It must is important to note that though social media, smart phones, Internet and other
form of digital communication mediums have facilitated business enterprises to engage their
consumers and acquire effective business achievements, yet contemporary businesses experience
several risks and challenges while establishing proper communicative platform with consumers,
stakeholders and employees (Scott 2015). Ineffective, confusing communication processes in
business result in creating several issues that further affect relationships, employee engagement,
business productivity and morale within the organizations Rosemann and vom Brocke 2015).
One of the greatest challenges businesses of 21st century are experiencing is the practice of ethics
and principles (Aral, Dellarocas and Godes 2013). Ethics is considered as the fundamental code
of conduct that organizations implement in order to evaluate their operations. Before the
initialization of business, organizations can experience issues related to the business’s ethics and
morals as they are considered as the fundamental founders envisaged in business (Ives, Palese
and Rodriguez 2016). Organizations must employ effective sharing of similar business
ideologies, values, morals and ethics. Businesses with conflicting and varied principles face
crucial time securing investments or further achieving goals through its process. One of the
renowned Uber technologies has been recently in news related to several sexual harassment and

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unethical business practices such as cyber attack deception (Constantinides 2014). As per
reports, the company has paid cyber criminals over $9000 in order to facade a cyber attack that
was revealed personal information of almost 60 million people in 2016 (Scholz 2017). This has
been noted as an excessively scandalous event and thus regarded as an unethical business
strategy to sexual assault assertions.
Amazon.com, a renowned e-commerce organization is among the several companies who
has been implementing social media in its business to achieve successful goals and targets.
Amazon being the leading e-commerce company comprehends the impact that a well-established
social-media strategy can possess and further have a proper knowledge of its consumers,
stakeholders and employees (Alcaraz and Zeadally 2015). The world’s largest online retailer
own a apparent and decisive authority on the current operations of the digital market-place and
the expert understanding has been explicitly demonstrated in their social media functioning and
operations. It is important to state that the company’s digital retail achievement story has the
greatest implication in comparison to the other retail organizations (Schivinski and Dabrowski
2016). As per reports, over 300 million active Amazon consumer accounts across the globe
whereby, almost 90 million of the consumers own the Amazon Prime membership who thereby
spend an average of $1400 per year on the platform (Rosemann and vom Brocke 2015).
However, it is to be noted that the recognition of Amazon is has managed to sustain its way into
every facet of the consumers’ lives (Ives, Palese and Rodriguez 2016). The immense impact of
social media and e-communication has been driving the customer and client involvement at
every stage. Customer opinions and reviews posted on digital platform are virtually synonymous
with Amazon (Scott 2015). Collection of buyer reviews has always been considered essential to
the company’s strategy. Evaluation and analysis have always been decisive to Amazon’s

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framework as the company offers products which consumers are unable to test or investigate
before purchasing. Thus previous customer assessments and appraisals on products offer
effective accountability and further play a role of an indicator of quality and value for consumers
(Hennig-Thurau, Hofacker and Bloching 2013). However, in order to refurbish reviews more
effective to buyers, the company further facilitates its community moderation by acknowledging
its consumers to elect on the efficiency and relevance of each analysis and buyers can further
post their queries directly to the reviewers. Such impact of digital media has stimulated effective
interaction with Amazon.com (Schivinski and Dabrowski 2016). The company is not only
regarded as an online retail site but is perceived as a community that Amazon has been nurturing
for past two decades. The company’s exclusive product endorsements across its diverse social
connections has been successful in acquiring increased sales in relation to other online business.
Several reports have reported that Amazon has more than 23 million likes on its Facebook page
(Alcaraz and Zeadally 2015). However, this has been responsible because of the immense
customer engagement. Times when any customer has any query or express their grievances with
the organization; Amazon gives rapid responses in order to assist the customers at such
circumstances. The company further endorses its products and further provides vouchers in order
to enhance the sales figures. For instance, Amazon offers unbelievable and attractive gift
coupons on special occasions such as mother’s day, women’s day or valentine’s days to raise its
online purchase. Furthermore, the Twitter campaign of Amazon is supposedly less dependent on
endorsements and promotions than its previous times and rather serves as a tool for motivating
its almost 3millions followers towards the company’s supplementary services like Amazon
Prime Video as well as Amazon Music (Aral, Dellarocas and Godes 2013). The company utilizes
this social media platform in order to make successful endorsements of its blog content. It has

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been noted that a medium for social media marketing rather than motivating direct trade and
sales, the organization’s activity on Twitter provides to create and further foster an affianced
consumer’s community and further acknowledges a majority of section towards Prime
membership. Furthermore, another renowned social media platform known as Pinterest is
fundamentally considered as an expansion of its primary online store (Alcaraz and Zeadally
2015). Pinterest is regarded as a social media platform whereby a considerable proportion of
users go to browse for acquisition ideas. The company further utilizes the social media in order
to make endorsements namely Handmade at Amazon, Amazon Style for Women along with
Amazon Home Services (Scott 2015). In 2017, Amazon has introduced its recent social
networking site for its buyers who have been in a demand of new products. The service named
‘Amazon Spark’ is referred as feed for its Primes users that has similar appearances like
Instagram whereby consumers can distribute their stories, images, knowledge and ideas that
include product purchase (Schivinski and Dabrowski 2016). Social media have very immensely
productive at delivering; endorsing and advertising that would facilitate companies to increase
their revenue generation (Mihola, Wawrosz and Kotěšovcová 2015). The company has gained its
recognition to offer social and communication characteristics on its site such as consumer-
centred reviews, product images of customers and effective query sections.
Amazon’s abandoned business opportunities to construct or further extend social
networking platform deserve much attention. The company has introduced Goodreads in 2013
fundamentally for social communication for booklovers. While establishing as a feature on
Kindle, Goodreads had not been included into the digital bookstore of Amazon further making it
autonomous (Alcaraz and Zeadally 2015). IMDB introduced in 1988, amalgamating with
Goodreads have established dedicated customer communities that the company could have

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reinforced with social network features (Hamel and Tennant 2015). Recently, Amazon has been
experimenting with other, enhanced modes of communications established around Alexa. The
company has provided over $2 million prize to build up a socialbot that can converse for almost
half an hour (Scholz 2017). The company converses the fulfilment guarantee ion varied ways
that includes presentation of recent updated supply availability information, release or delivery
date estimation and options for accelerated delivery along with delivery consignment
notifications as well as update provisions. Amazon effectively concentrates on customers’
satisfaction metrics whereby, each site is intimately scrutiny with standard service accessibility
monitoring site along with download rapidity. In the 2017 SEC, filling Amazon has explained
the environment for its products and services regarded as extremely competitive (Alcaraz and
Zeadally 2015). The company view its primary current as well as potential competitors as both
online, offline as well as multichannel sellers, publishers, distributors along with manufacturers
of products that Amazon offer and trade to its consumers and stakeholders (Hajli 2014). Web
search engines, social networking sites, web portals along with other application-based means of
investigating and acquiring products and services either through direct or indirect alliance with
other retail organizations.
Thus, it is noted that every successful social media is enduringly evolving to accomplish
the rising customer demands and needs and Amazon is keen to take active participation in that
evolution. Thus, the company has become the immensely renowned and valuable e-commerce
store with gross revenue of physical goods of over $50 billion in last year which has been a
estimated to be four times that one of its biggest competitor, Walmart. The essay has effectively
focused on the evolution of business communication and the challenges experienced by

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contemporary businesses. Further to this, the paper has shed light on the way social networking
has played a vital role on the business processes of Amazon.

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