Using Amazon's Web 2.0 Features

Amazon is one of the most visited sites on the web. They have built into their system some very powerful web 2.0 features that segue very nicely into a niche marketing web 2.0 strategy.

There are a few features that allow you to create a powerful presence in your niche or niches.

• Your profile page and its links
• Posts to your connect blog
• Your Reviews
• Your Listmania Lists
• Your So you want to …. lists
  

All these features give you a tremendous amount of latitude to create an "expert" status. Maybe even more so than writing articles. If you go about this correctly you can literally reach millions of people in specific niches. Everyone reads books, so your potential audience is… everyone.

The key to using Amazon's web 2.0 features is to focus on a niche. Most people read books about what interests them, and your reviews and lists will reach many people looking for books in the niche you're working with. Your blog articles will interest them and possibly bring them to your site.

If you don't have an Author Profile yet you need to sign up and create one. Creating a Author Profile will give you a blog on amazon and an enhanced profile page. You do not need to have written a book yet. If you already have a profile that's fine and good, you still need to get an "Author Profile". Amazon will allow you to automatically connect your Author Profile to an existing profile.

The instructions on Amazon are really great and creating your profile and working with the different features is pretty simple. Each of the features below has detailed instructions in your profile area.

The Steps To Take In Brief: (more details below)

Basically it works the same as other Web 2.0 tactics. The exposure gets you noticed. The community aspect allows the noticers to comment and communicate with everything you do. In amazon, people can sign up to read your posts or your rss feeds for any and all of the features you take part in. The more reviews and lists you create, the greater your reach.

1. Go to http://amazon.com/connect and sign up there.

2. Add your profile features and details.

3. Review some books in your niche.

4. Create a "listmania" list in your niche.

5. Create a "so you want to…" list """

6. Invite as many people as you think might be interested.

In your profile use the website links to your main blogs. You can do this in your signature and in your "interests" section. Try to do at least one of each feature as soon as possible to make  your profile interesting enough so people want to sign up as a friend. Yes, you get a list of friends you can contact.

Your reviews and lists are able to be voted on or commented on. Because of this feature, Amazon's web 2.0 features beg to be used by "buzz groups". Inviting people is the kicker. This amounts to creating buzz. The more interesting your profile, the more people will hang around.

More Action To Take With Your Amazon Profile

Integrate your Amazon Blog with feeds from your Authority Blog

This strategy will give you a backlink to your Authority blog on Amazon. Obviously a good thing. This is really simple and takes only a few minutes. Your posts will show up in your Amazon Blog. Take these steps:

• Go to your profile and click on "visit your amazon blog" right in the middle.

• On your blog page, upper right corner click on "add rss feed to your blog"

• Add the url to your feed and click "preview"

• When you see your most recent post, click "add"

• Rinse and repeat for any other feeds that you genuinely author.

Using Amazon is a perfect strategy for long term business minded people. It compliments your content site and allows you to build expert status and resilient targeted traffic. If you are a book author or intend to be, an Amazon Author Profile is one of the most important foundational actions you can take.