As a quick follow-up to my last post, consider how American Express is aggressively trying to monetize social media, seemingly more than its competitors.
From Fox Business
Twitter’s #hashtags now do more than just aggregate conversations and start trends.
Starting Tuesday, American Express (AXP) customers can also use hashtags to see exclusive deals, buy products and have them shipped for free in what marks the first widespread monetization of the microblogging site since its inception.
“We’re leveraging our unique technology and closed-loop network to introduce a seamless solution that redefines what’s possible in the world of social commerce,” said Leslie Berland, AmEx’s senior vice president of digital partnerships and development.
She went on to note that AmEx realizes there is “significant power” in combining its assets with Twitter’s platform to better connect merchants and cardholders.
The social network and credit card operator announced a new social commerce experience late Monday that on a small scale transforms Twitter into a platform where AmEx cardholders can buy a wide range of products using hashtags.
Gifts range from gift cards to products from Amazon (AMZN) and Xbox. AmEx will fund the free two-day shipping.
All cardholders need to do is sync their card to Twitter. The Card Sync technology has existed for the last 11 months, however it was previously used to deliver savings to card members who tweeted special offer hashtags from merchants. Now, it also allows them to actually buy the deals from Twitter.
