Amazon Inspire: The TikTok Within Amazon

The next generation of buyers is influencer-driven and has shorter attention spans. According to Persuasion Nation, nowadays, short-form videos receive 2.5 times more engagement than long-form ones. So it’s not surprising why platforms like TikTok became popular and why YouTube launched Shorts.

So what does an e-commerce site like Amazon do to keep up? Make their own version, of course.

This is why in 2022, Amazon launched Inspire, to help sellers and content producers showcase products in a more engaging way. In this article, we’ll look at how Inspire works and how it can help brands increase their sales.

What Is Amazon Inspire?

Think of Inspire as a hybrid of TikTok, Instagram, and Amazon. It allows sellers, influencers, and customers to post shoppable photos and short-form videos. It is named as such because it seeks to provide people with some inspiration for their next purchase. (That’s fancy talk for buying more products.)

Shoppers can access Inspire through the Amazon mobile app by clicking on the Inspire icon, which is the second from the left.

Customers can choose categories they want to see, and their feed will be tailored to those categories.

If a customer likes the product, they can easily purchase it within the app itself by clicking on the photo of the product on the right side.

As of writing Inspire is available in the following countries, so if you don’t see the icon in your mobile app, your country is probably not covered:

• United States of America
• United Kingdom
• India
• Canada
• France
• Spain
• Italy
• Germany

Who Can Post on Amazon Inspire?

If Inspire is available in your country and you have an Amazon account, you can post via the app. In particular, Amazon allows the following to create content on Inspire:

• Amazon Influencers
  • These are social media personalities, bloggers, and product experts leveraging their expertise to craft engaging content on Amazon. They are part of the Amazon Influencer Program, and you can recognize their post by the “Earns commissions” tag in the heading.

• Brands Registered under Brand Registry
  • This is another upside of having your brand enrolled in Brand Registry. If your brand is registered and you have a Brand Store, you can create content through Amazon Posts, which will then be featured on Inspire.

• Amazon Customers
  • You will recognize customer posts by the star rating on top and the tag “Verified Purchase.” In order to create a shoppable post on Inspire, you must have spent at least $50 on Amazon using a credit or debit card in the past 12 months.

How to Make Content on Amazon Inspire

Those who are qualified to create posts on Inspire can submit their shoppable posts using the Create button.

But note that you should follow Inspire’s rules:

• Content focusing on the following are not allowed:
  • Sellers and the Customer Service they provide
  • Ordering issues and returns
  • Shipping packaging
  • Product condition and damage
  • Shipping cost and speed

• The following are also not allowed to be included:
  • Comments about pricing or availability
  • Content written in unsupported languages
  • Content written in unsupported languages
  • Repetitive text, spam, or pictures created with symbols
  • Private information
  • Profanity or harassment
  • Hate speech
  • Sexual content
  • External links
  • Ads, conflicts of interest, promotional content
  • Compensated reviews (with the exception of those received through the Vine Program)
  • Plagiarism, infringement, or impersonation
  • Illegal activities
  • Medical claims
  • Copyrighted music

Here are some of the best practices when you’re uploading on Inspire:

• Orient your content vertically. Your photos and videos will be viewed on mobile devices, so make sure it’s optimized for this.
• Amazon recommends videos to be not more than 30 seconds long for maximum engagement.
• Include at least one product tag. Multiple tags are allowed as long as they are all included in the content.

Conclusion

More than 70% of consumers bought products seen on social media posts. Inspire is just one of the ways Amazon is trying to take advantage of this.

However, this is not the company’s first attempt. Before, it had a Pinterest-like feature called Interesting Finds as well as Amazon Spark, which is like Instagram.

Will this TikTok-like feature be a success or will this be phased out as well just like the others?