This Data On How Amazon Is Failing On Facebook Is Absolutely Brutal

Amazon has 16 million fans on Facebook — an online customer base that most other retailers would kill for.

Yet the company isn't very good at reaching them, according to a new report. And while being bested by Walmart and Victoria's Secret in social media isn't a badge of shame — those two brands are masters of Facebook — Amazon is also getting its butt kicked by the likes of Footlocker and Applebee's.

One of the first lessons marketers learn when trying to use Facebook to drive e-commerce traffic is that hard-sell posts on Facebook, offering goods for sale, don't work. Consumers want to be entertained or inspired in social media. Creative, entertaining posts are the ones that get high customer engagement; posts with deals of the day get ignored.

That's something we're hearing over and over again at Business Insider's Social Commerce Summit today.

Expion, a social media marketing management company, did an analysis of the top retailers on Facebook in Q4, the crucial holiday shopping season.

It found Amazon isn't even in the top 10 when it comes to persuading Facebook users to pay attention to its posts. The ranking is based on the number of fan actions per post during the period. (Among all retailers, there were an average of 3,880 fan actions per post.)

The reason, Expion concludes, is because Amazon appears to fundamentally misunderstand Facebook. Its posts don't have the same amount of thought or effort behind them, Expion says, and its poorest posts are mostly daily deals.

Here's who won Christmas on Facebook, among retailers:

Amazon managed only 4,622 fan actions per post.

Here's Expion's take on why Amazon failed to engage its audience.

Amazon may be the top online retailer for consumer search, but when it comes to social engagement it’s missing the mark. It has nearly 16M fans and posted 250 times, but is only #15 on the Fan Action Index list. Brands like Kohl’s, Target and Macy’s all generated over 3X the Fan Actions that the online retail giant did. When looking at it’s posts, it’s easy to see that Amazon doesn’t put the same amount of thought and effort into each post as a Target or Starbucks might. It also doesn’t have a conversational or engaging dialogue with fans like a Walmart or SUBWAY does. The majority of it’s poorest performing posts were Deal of the Day posts that didn’t seem to resonate with Facebook Fans. Some of it’s top performing posts did have a conversational tone, showing that a more strategic and consistent narrative would likely significantly boost Facebook engagement.

And here's an example of a recent Amazon deal offer that got not very many likes:

Facebook

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.