If you haven’t noticed already, Amazon is slowly expanding its pool of products and services. One of the latest is the Amazon Influencer program and live streaming options. Jim Fuhs, our #TwitterSmarter team member and President of Fuhsion Marketing, is a pro at using Amazon tools to grow his brand. So this week, we caught up with Jim to chat about Amazon’s new platforms and how you can use them in line with Twitter to reach a broad audience and make money through your efforts. Here’s a summary of our chat.
Guest: Jim Fuhs
Topic: Using Twitter to promote yourself as an Amazon Influencer
Format: Eight questions directed at the guest. Everyone’s welcome to share.
You’ve likely heard of Amazon’s affiliate program. Once you sign up as an Amazon Associate, you can start earning a commission when people purchase through your affiliate link. The Amazon Influencer program, as Jim told us, is the next step.
A1. An #Amazon Influencer is the next step after becoming an Amazon Associates which is the first step in Amazon #affiliatemarketing.
The influencer program opens up a whole new world of opportunity in terms of monetization of your brand on @Amazon.#TwitterSmarter
— ? Jim Fuhs #SMWL21 #DigitalMarketing (@FuhsionMktg) May 27, 2021
Jim’s business partner, Chris joined us for the chat as well, and he mentioned that Jim’s always sharing helpful tips about becoming approved as an Amazon Influencer and being a good one.
A1: there is a process that Jim walks creators through to get approved – but as with most things, just getting approved doesn't make you a *good* one! @FuhsionMktg helps people with that too! #TwitterSmarter
— Chris Stone #PodFestGlobal #PodFam – Cast Ahead (@AheadCast) May 27, 2021
Heaps, as our guest pointed out. Among other things, you get a dedicated page from which people can shop your products on Amazon, and the possibility of working with brands which leads to instant monetization. You can even make your product page more inviting to shoppers by adding photos, links to your livestreams, and product reviews.
A2b. The shop page also provides you the ability to create
▶️ Shoppable photos
▶️ Product review videos that appear on product pages
▶️ Idea lists to share with your community
▶️ Links to your Amazon livestreamsCheck out my shop at https://t.co/KmmMLaf6ty#TwitterSmarter
— ? Jim Fuhs #SMWL21 #DigitalMarketing (@FuhsionMktg) May 27, 2021
If you’re used to livestreaming on various platforms, you also get paid to do what you do anyway. As Scott mentioned, it’s an impressive start.
A2 Here's an interesting deal: I did my first broadcast (60 minutes) and earned $0.40.
Sounds little, but who else has earned anything for 60 minutes on any other platfrom.#twittersmarter
— D. Scott Smith (@d_scott) May 27, 2021
For starters, join the affiliate program as an Amazon Associate. Once you’re in, you can apply to become an influencer. Then choose your strongest social media channel to be approved through.
Our guest Jim and his business partner, Chris, put together a video to explain how this process works. You can check it out at their course page: Dealcasters.academy
A3b. Chris Stone @aheadcast and I put together a video to help you understand the process
You can watch it at https://t.co/8IfnzT1mlB#TwitterSmarter
— ? Jim Fuhs #SMWL21 #DigitalMarketing (@FuhsionMktg) May 27, 2021
Amazon is all about repurposing your content. You can link back to your shop, content, and videos, and earn affiliate commissions for sales through those shared links. Twitter can be a great gateway into your Amazon shop page.
A4. Amazon wants you to repurpose your content. Since the shop, idea lists, videos, all have links, it lets you drive traffic back to Amazon so that you can get #Affiliate commissions and revenue. Even your previous livestreams.#TwitterSmarter
— ? Jim Fuhs #SMWL21 #DigitalMarketing (@FuhsionMktg) May 27, 2021
It’s Amazon’s own live streaming platform. You can directly stream onto Amazon.com, and as you become more consistent and popular, your live videos will also play on Amazon product pages, giving you a broader visibility. Check out Jim’s show to get an idea of how a livestream show looks: Dealcasters.live
The good thing, though, is that you can also use third-party live streaming platforms to go live on Amazon. If you already run live shows, you can just set Amazon as your new destination. The platform also enables audience engagement and followership so you can build your own community as well.
A5b. You can use 3rd party tools to stream to Amazon like @streamyard@ecammtweets
You can create a full blown live show, add Amazon as a destination to your existing show you already produce.
You also get audience engagement on Amazon and obtain followers.#TwitterSmarter
— ? Jim Fuhs #SMWL21 #DigitalMarketing (@FuhsionMktg) May 27, 2021
Twitter Lists are an amazing way to unite a group of users in one place. For instance, to help grow your influence on Amazon, you can create Twitter lists of people you’ve interviewed on your live shows. If you usually interview book authors, you could create a list of these authors and engage with them regularly on Twitter. They might well be interested in checking out each other’s books. You can even create a list of brands that you like to partner with and promote their products. The more visibility you give them, the more they’ll want to work with you.
A6. Create lists of guests you have interviewed on Amazon. How many authors would love to talk about their new book.
Lists of brands you would like to work with and promote their products on Amazon as well.
Engage with these lists and your influence will grow#TwitterSmarter
— ? Jim Fuhs #SMWL21 #DigitalMarketing (@FuhsionMktg) May 27, 2021
Jim’s favorites include Lately for social media management and scheduling, Easil to create brand designs, and Adobe Spark and Canva for creating other various banner designs.
A7. There are several we use. Our favorites are@latelyai@teameasil@adobespark@canva
From creating thumbnails to repurposing content to share on Twitter to get people back to our content on Amazon#TwitterSmarter
— ? Jim Fuhs #SMWL21 #DigitalMarketing (@FuhsionMktg) May 27, 2021
Jim has a few tricks up his sleeve that he shared with us.
A8. Clips of previous shows by using @latelyai that link to the full episode.
Multistreaming our #AmazonLive to Twitter
We use a .live redirect from https://t.co/ctBG4D1dy6 to make it easy to find the showhttps://t.co/H9pJIUFFTm takes you there every time#TwitterSmarter
— ? Jim Fuhs #SMWL21 #DigitalMarketing (@FuhsionMktg) May 27, 2021
Well, folks, that’s all from me this week. Thanks for reading through, and for more insights from our chat with Jim, have a look at this Twitter thread. If you liked this summary, then you’ll surely enjoy our live Twitter chat. Join us in Thursdays at 1pm ET on #TwitterSmarter—we’d love to hear from you!
About me, Narmadhaa:
I write all the things—technical and marketing copy to fill the pocket; haiku and short stories to fill the soul. A social media enthusiast, I’m a member of the #TwitterSmarter chat crew, and always happy to take on writing gigs.
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