Digital Communication Strategy Analysis: Amazon Inc. Case Study Report

This report examines the role of digital communication in modern business, with a specific focus on the strategies employed by Amazon Inc. It begins by outlining the importance of communication in business, emphasizing the shift towards digital platforms due to globalization and technological advancements. The report then delves into the benefits of digital communication, including increased efficiency, reach, and cost-effectiveness, highlighting the significance of social media, email, and internal communication systems. A detailed analysis of Amazon's digital communication tools is provided, covering their use of Facebook, video conferencing (Skype, Viber, Chime), Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and blogs/v-logs. The report also acknowledges the risks associated with implementing digital strategies and concludes with recommendations and a summary of the findings. The report underscores the importance of transparency, customer engagement, and brand positioning in the digital age, offering insights into how businesses can leverage digital tools for success.

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Business Communication
Digital Communication Strategy

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Table of Contents
Introduction to business communication.........................................................................................3
Digital communication and the advent of social media...................................................................3
Benefits of digital communication...................................................................................................3
Digital communications used at Amazon Inc..................................................................................4
Facebook......................................................................................................................................5
Video Conferencing.....................................................................................................................5
Amazon Chime............................................................................................................................5
Twitter and Instagram..................................................................................................................5
WhatsApp.....................................................................................................................................6
Blogs and V-logs..........................................................................................................................6
Risks, estimates and analysis...........................................................................................................6
Recommendations and conclusion..................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction to business communication
Communication in business acts as one of the essential elements for the success and overall
development of the business enterprises. Thus, every business focuses on communication not
only to share information amongst the stakeholders but also to develop and maintain relationship
with the customers, employees and with other stakeholders in order to attain positive outcomes.
The role of communication is essential in terms of developing relations with the customers,
employees, PR agencies, government organizations and every other body which takes some sort
of interest in the business functionalities (Cabiddu, De Carlo & Piccoli, 2014).
The most important stakeholders for an organization are customers. With the growing
competition in the business environment, it is necessary to put efforts for analysing and
understanding requirements of the business. In this regard, communication plays significant role
as it is essential in terms of retaining customers’ interest as well as employees’ interest within the
organization. With the help of communication, organization could easily ensure employee
satisfaction, engagement and retention for longer period of time. With regards to this, role of
communication will be discussed in this report along with analysing the changes occurred in the
communication in the past few years. Amongst them, the major change has been evaluated as the
digital communication strategy and this has been the major source of success for the
organization.
Digital communication and the advent of social media
With the effect of globalisation and the introduction of internet have been the major sources for
the evolution of technology. With the effect of these mediums, revolutionary change has been
recognised in the communication tools. Communication has become more effective and essential
for the business with the introduction of internet and evolution of technology. Digital strategies
have taken over the market of traditional forms of communication and the biggest example of
digital communication strategy is social media (Harlow & Guo, 2014).
Social media is also considered as the drug amongst the youngsters and in the other age groups
also and business organizations take advantage of this addiction by keeping them engaged. Major
social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. These tools have

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acquired inherent place in the business communication. Along with this, internal communication
system such as instant message has also been a significant part of the business communication
tools. Internal chat systems are considered as the most effective platforms because these could be
customised as per the departmental needs, thus, it could be said that digital communication has
set up its effective place in the business.
Benefits of digital communication
The use of digital communication tools are used by every organization in every industry
irrelevance to the size, nature and their type. The major reason behind adaptation of digital
communication tools in every area is their efficiency and efficacy. Apart from this, secondary
reason behind usage of digital communication tools is their speed, reachability and the cost to
operate these tools. With the help of tools available in digitalisation, an organization could easily
spread information to an individual particularly as well as to a group of individual at the same
time. Social media and email are the two major tools which are mostly used by every
organization and. The major benefit of using these tools are their efficacy, reachability and that
too at very low operating cost in comparison to the old generation communication tools. With the
help of these tools, organization could easily target number of stakeholders at once and with the
help of usage of technology in these mediums, its efficacy could easily be analysed. Digital
communication tools are also considered as the essential tools for developing and maintaining
transparency at workplace (Hartley & Chatterton, 2015).
Globalisation is the major reason for major changes in the business as globalisation is the only
reason which has influenced businesses to expand their functionalities in the overseas markets.
Dream of Jeff Bezos of selling over internet is also influenced with the rise and growth of
globalisation and technology in the business environment. Along with establishing global
presence, organizations have adopted digital communication tools for the objective of managing
diversified workforce along with ensuring effective coordination.
One of the biggest advantages of digital communications at workplaces is analysing the gap
between the customers’ demands and the deliverables by the business enterprises. Previously,
communication between businesses and customers were only known as the one way and it was
merely used for advertisement and promotional purposes. But after digitalisation of

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communication have evolved the whole communication procedures. Social media is one of the
biggest aspect which has not only enhances engagement between customers and businesses but it
has also helped the businesses to evaluate the needs of their target audience along with
enhancing its interaction with the stakeholders which is one of the biggest factor for the success
and growth of the organization. With the help of digital communication mediums, transparency
at workplace has been the major element for organizational success and growth (Jussila,
Kärkkäinen & Aramo-Immonen, 2014).
Social media provides option to the customers to get in touch with the company directly and
company could easily gather relevant information regarding their products and services from
their target and potential customer segments. Social media platforms also act essential tool in
terms of influencing target audience along with attracting them towards their products and
services. Apart from this, setting brand positioning is one of the most essential factors in order to
attain desired goals along with the objective of enhancing its performance as per the dynamic
business environment. Brand positioning has become very effective along with developing
relationship with the customers. With the help of social media platforms and other digital
communication tools, spreading awareness amongst the target audience have become the
effective option for the business organizations in setting up their effective position in the
competitive business environment (Lee, Reinicke, Sarkar & Anderson, 2015).
Digital communications used at Amazon Inc.
Amazon is a behemoth player of ecommerce industry and it has acquired leading position as the
internet retailer in the world. With regards to the organizational growth and success, impact of
technology and internet is very intense. Jeff Bezos has transformed its skills and traits with the
evolution of business environment and with changing business environment; he has adopted
technology and digital communication tools in order to enhance organizational performance
along with matching up the needs of the customers (Men, 2014). Following tools are being used
by the Amazon to transform their functionalities with the changing business environment along
with gaining positive outcomes:

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Facebook
This is one of the earliest forms of social media tools. Amongst the total population in the world,
approximately 2.5 billion people are active users of Facebook which means one third of the total
population is using the oldest form of social media. Amazon uses this platform to stay in touch
with their target and potential customers in terms of spreading awareness amongst them. Apart
from this, employees are encouraged towards sharing their experiences with the organization
along with sharing unique ideas for the purpose of improving organizational performance. This
has leaded the organization to develop and maintain transparent communication at workplace
along with retaining them for longer period of time (Royle & Laing, 2014).
Video Conferencing
Amazon concentrates on workforce diversity and employee engagement from the different parts
of the globe. Amazon uses Skype, Viber, and various other video conferencing tools to manage
its subsidiaries and the employees at worldwide locations along with sharing them the relevant
information relevant to the organization. This also helps in enhancing their engagement and to
develop coordination between the employees and employer.
Amazon Chime
Amazon believes in innovation and creativity and for the same, employees are provided with
relevant and required resources and time to think out of the box without pressuring them for
generating innovative ideas. Recently, organization has introduced Chime which is a highly
efficient platform in terms of connecting people through chat, video and audio call from different
parts of the globe. Along with this, this platform could also be used as the medium for sharing
documents, music, images and software in real time. Thus, it is considered as the highly
upgraded version of other available platforms like Skype, Duo, Viber, etc. Chime is also
essential in terms of connecting employees and other stakeholders from different parts of the
world along with attending organizational meeting (Samson, Mehta & Chandani, 2014).
Twitter and Instagram
Although, these platforms are used for sharing crisp information mainly in terms of images and
videos but at the same time, these platforms are much effective and efficient. Amazon has an
active presence on both these platforms as these platforms enables organization to execute

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effective communication with the stakeholders. These platforms are also considered as the
effective mediums for getting feedback from different stakeholders. It also helps the organization
to get appropriate and relevant feedbacks to improve their shopping experience. Organization
also gets relevant means to quickly address the issues of the customers along with making them
realise their importance for the organization. With the help of these platforms, organization could
easily transform their skills along with enhancing customer engagement and gathering relevant
ways to enhance customer satisfaction. To maintain transparency amongst the customers and
other stakeholders, organization has appointed separate team who constantly look out queries,
suggestions and feedbacks posted on these platforms. With more than 1.8 million followers on
Instagram, organization has marked its position as the active user of digital communication
platforms (Spilioti, 2015).
WhatsApp
This is one of the most used unofficial mobile applications in the world. This tool is widely used
as the form of instant communication platform. Amazon encourages their coordination amongst
the employees from different background and cultures by grouping them in one WhatsApp group
which could be used for sharing relevant information by the employees. Informal communication
platform is essential in terms of enhancing comfort level of the employees with each other and
the recent features unlocked in this application have made it as the most effective application.
Blogs and V-logs
In past few years, trend of blogs and V-logs amongst the organizations have been increased. This
is considered as the vital tool for enhancing customer as well as the employee engagement.
Amazon focuses on blogs and V-logs in terms of sharing its failure as well as success stories
with its employees. This act as the motivational technique and it also helps the employees to
know their company’s current and previous situation. It not only motivates the employees but it
also provides the employees to stay in touch with the organization as the stories are effective
platforms for enhancing interest of the employees. Lastly, these blogs and V-logs are compiled
by Amazon and offer a substantial history to the business (Tagg, 2015).

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Risks, estimates and analysis
Implementation of any new strategy and mainly in the digital communication era is not much
easy as it seems easy. Digital communication strategy is meant to be very effective as well as the
factors for bringing massive change. The major risk which is identified while implementing any
new strategy is resistance from the employees. Implementation of strategy already requires
immense support from the top management and other employees, thus, it is necessary for the
business leaders to adopt appropriate strategies to reduce the chances of resistance and to make
them flexible for adopting change to enhance performance of the organization which is
ultimately essential for development and growth of the organization.
Recommendations and conclusion
Digital communication is not a communication tool but it is much more than this as it has
multiple usages such as customer and employee engagement, retention of stakeholders’ and
investors’ interest in the organizational functionalities, etc. Thus, organizations have smartly
shifted their functionalities of communication through traditional mediums to trending mediums.
Amazon is a leader of ecommerce industry and significance of digital communication mediums
have been the primary tools for organizational growth and success. These tools have not
enhances organizational performance but these have also made the organization a part of their
customers’ lives by regularly interacting them. Thus, it is necessary for every organization to
move as per change along with gaining competitive advantage and to acquire their desired goals
and objectives.

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References
Cabiddu, F., De Carlo, M., & Piccoli, G. (2014). Social media affordances: Enabling customer
engagement. Annals of Tourism Research, 48, 175-192.
Harlow, S., & Guo, L. (2014). Will the revolution be tweeted or Facebooked? Using digital
communication tools in immigrant activism. Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication, 19(3), 463-478.
Hartley, P., & Chatterton, P. (2015). Business Communication: Rethinking your professional
practice for the post-digital age. Routledge. United Kingdom.
Jussila, J. J., Kärkkäinen, H., & Aramo-Immonen, H. (2014). Social media utilization in
business-to-business relationships of technology industry firms. Computers in Human
Behavior, 30, 606-613.
Lee, L., Reinicke, B., Sarkar, R., & Anderson, R. (2015). Learning through interactions:
improving project management through communities of practice. Project Management
Journal, 46(1), 40-52.
Men, L. R. (2014). Strategic internal communication: Transformational leadership,
communication channels, and employee satisfaction. Management Communication
Quarterly, 28(2), 264-284.
Royle, J., & Laing, A. (2014). The digital marketing skills gap: Developing a Digital Marketer
Model for the communication industries. International Journal of Information
Management, 34(2), 65-73.
Samson, R., Mehta, M., & Chandani, A. (2014). Impact of online digital communication on
customer buying decision. Procedia Economics and Finance, 11, 872-880.

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Spilioti, T. (Eds.). (2015). The Routledge handbook of language and digital communication.
Routledge. United Kingdom.
Tagg, C. (2015). Exploring digital communication: Language in action. Routledge. United
Kingdom.