Study: Amazon primes for social growth

LONDON — Online retailing giant Amazon.com is the retail industry's fastest growing social media brand. According to the latest Retail Social Media Benchmark results from eDigitalResearch, Amazon tops both the Facebook and Twitter social media rankings.

Amazon climbed to the benchmark's top spot, thanks in part to its recent Prime Day sales event, having gained more than 1.2 million new followers on its Twitter account since the last wave back in March.

The one-day sales event, likened to Black Friday saw an estimated 398 items sold per second. During the lead-up to the July 15 event, Amazon actively promoted the sales extravaganza with television spots and on social media.

Amazon has gained more than 5 million new Facebook followers since eDigitalResearch first started benchmarking social media in the retail market back in 2010. Amazon combines a mixture of trend focused and visual messaging in order to engage with social audiences.

The study also found that Primark has made one of the biggest improvements wave on wave, having gained an impressive 500,000 new followers on its Facebook page despite the fact it has no transactional website.

The low-cost fashion retailer also managed to attract 800,000 new followers on Instagram. Primark reinforces its business model across social media sites, posting images of product ranges, sharing celebrity blogs and highlighting low prices and youth-orientated content.