👉 Background: Amazon is one of the world's biggest technology companies with a market cap of nearly $1.5 trillion USD. And, they employ over 1.5 million people around the world—that's three times the population of the Gold Coast.

👉 What happened: Now, Amazon has teamed up with Meta to bring their shopping platform to Facebook and Instagram. Users will be able to link their Meta social accounts to Amazon, and it will allow them to shop for products without actually leaving the social media app.

👉 What else: According to data, the average Facebook user spends nearly 20 hours a month on Facebook. And with Meta being a part of so many people's daily lives, Amazon wants in on some of that action.

What's the key learning?

💡When it comes to social, if you can't beat them, join them. Social media platforms thrive on network effects where the more people that use a platform, the more its value increases.

💡Despite being one of the most powerful companies in the world, Amazon hasn't been able to create strong network effects through social media:

• In 2017, Amazon launched its Instagram competitor Spark, but shut it down in 2019.
• In 2022, Amazon launched a TikTok style shopping feed named Inspire. But, it hasn't gotten anywhere near the same clout as TikTok.

💡Now, it seems that Amazon has given up on trying to compete with the social media pros for now, and instead decided to team up with them.