Social Media Strategy and Branding: Why Positioning Is Critical In Creating a Social Media Brand

There are so many products in the marketplace that the only way a product can be branded is if it is positioned.  Position is a marketing strategy that is perceptual. You use this strategy to define your product within your customers mind.

This is why positioning is critical to the creation of a brand, especially in social media era. “Positioning” is a term created by marketing experts Al Ries and Jack Trout. Positioning is a perception strategy. To create a brand, you must be able to define your product in comparison to other brands, in your customer’s mind. To position, a marketer must position their product in direct contrast to one other brand. To be successful, a product must have a function. It must also create a relationship with its customers. This relationship is a critical element to success in the social media era.  This is the purpose of a brand.

            A perfect example is Coke. Coke has a function---it cools you off on a hot, summer day. It is an iconic brand that has developed a relationship with its customers. This can be seen in the New Coke vs. Old Coke debacle in 1984. Coke had run some intensive tests. It found that a new Coke formula had overwhelming approval over old coke taste.  More importantly, they found that the New Coke had an overwhelming approval over Pepsi. Coke management felt it was a no brainer. New Coke was introduced and there was a firestorm of protest. One thing that Coke’s management hadn’t taken into account was old Coke’s brand and positioning. Old Coke had a significant brand with its customers that bordered on a human relationship. Our friends might not be as attractive, as smart, as cool, as other people. But our friends are our friends and we aren’t going to reject them. Our “friends” are “positioned” in our minds---we will never reject them. This is why Old Coke’s friends demanded that it be brought back. This is critical in a social media era. To brand in this era, a brand must create a “friendship” with its customers. This “friendship” can’t be created without a positioning strategy.