There has been a lot of talk over the past year about four stand-out tech and internet companies: Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

(Others reckon IBM deserves inclusion given its performance and quiet mastery of some big areas in back-end tech. But that’s a debate for another day – and blog.)

Out of The Four, it’s notable that three have social networks. Google+ is no clear-cut success – yet – and granted it is a leap to include Apple’s Ping for music. But no one ever talks about Amazon in terms of social. Should we?

David Wogahn over on the Content Marketing Institute’s site last week made a case for treating Amazon more like a social network.

There is some good detail in that piece but what I like the most about it is the idea that you have a public profile on Amazon (if you choose) and next to that you can build content in the form of a personal profile, keywords, reviews, photos, even videos.

For some types of business this isn’t relevant. It probably depends on Amazon selling something in your space.

But for others Amazon becomes a content marketing platform, linked to your identity.

Everyone is thinking about this in terms of their own sites and the big boys in social media – Facebook, Twitter, G+, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Pinterest – but don’t overlook a top-10 site that most of us actually use.

Creating content on Amazon can help your business as much as it can shoppers and the company itself.
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