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.

           

SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY; HOW DO YOU CREATE A FACEBOOK PAGE

A page is the place where convesation that create band takes place. OKAY!!!!!! How do you create a page?

• OPEN PAGE. This is the equivalent to signing in for a personel account.  Opening the Page, explains who the company is, what it does.  Its the thing that gives a brand a presence in Facebook.
• CREATE A TAB: Once the Page is created, a welcoming tab must be next.  The purpose of the Page is to make customers comfortable. This is why a tab should be created that welcomes the customers and makes navigation around the page easy.
• CREATE CONTENT:  This is the reason why a brand creates a page---you want to converse with your customers and to create a relationship with them. An example would be if Pepsi developed a new drink. The page could offer a free coupon to try the drink and another one if they posted a comment.  This tells Pepsi if people like the soda.  This is how Pepsi creates a brand for the soda.
• TARGET YOUR AUDIENCE :  Facebook has tremendous scale. Facebook has analytics that tell Pepsi what is the target audience for this soda. The conversation was started through the free gift. The targeting allows Pepsi a more deeper conversation with customers.
• KEEP THE CONVERSATION ALIVE: Constant feedback with the target audience is critical. This is how the brand is created. To create a brand, constant "conversation" must be present.
• EXCITE AGAIN AND AGAIN:  Through the use of constant conversation, a marketer can constantly give away coupons, have contests, have the the engagment that is needed for constant coversation.  This is critical. New content---either from the brand or the customer---and, hopefully both, is constantly going on to page.  Remember, the Page is a CONVERSATION. This is why it exists. Conversations are ongoing. A conversation among people who talk about the same things is boring.  This kind of conversation will not lead to deep friendships in real life.  It won't lead to deep brands in business.
• UTILIZE FACEBOOK INSIGHTS:  The scale of Facebook (over 500 million users) allows a marketer to understand if his branding strategy is working.  Are people replying? What are thier comments? How are they reacting to your campaign? This information that is in real time allows a marketer to quickly adjust the "conversation" to create a brand that customers are comfortable with.
• PROMOTE YOUR PRESENCE: A brand's facebook page is the place where conversation takes place with your customers---so by all means, advertise it.  Let people know that its exists. Do this through your conventional advertising, your web page, your interactions with journalists and bloggers.

Here are some statistics that should tell a marketer that Facebook Page is a great thing to have conversations that create brand:

• More than 500 million active users
• at least 1/2 of these log on to Facebook each day
• The average user spends more than 55 minutes on Facebook each day
• There are more than 5 billion pieces of content (different touch points) are shared each week
• 20 million new people sign up each day
• pages have 5.3 billion fans
• More than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through thier mobile devices. This is a significant statistic. Ninety per cent of Americans are within 3 feet of thier phones 24 hours a day. People read more than 90% of thier text messages

THE FACEBOOK PAGE IS THE PLATFORM TO HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH YOUR FRIENDS THAT CREATE BRAND

SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING; HOW TO HAVE A "CONVERSATION" THAT CREATES A BRAND

 The creation of a Facebook Page is the means by which "conversation" is created. To create a modern brand, a brand and its customer has to have a "conversation among friends". Fine. How does this happen.  The Brand creates a Facebook page (or its equivalent). The Brand creates compelling content to engage a customer with. The customer files a comment that the Brand replies to, and over time a relationship (a brand) is created.

The creation of a modern brand is equivalent to to people have a conversation in real life. To have a human conversation,  two people must meet (analogous to a Facebook platform, for instance), they have to have something to talk about (analogous to a customer going to a company Page and engaging in some content. Perhaps Pepsi offering a free soda with a coupon). The person tries the soda, a files a wall, a comment, a video, a post----some continued conversation.  Then Pepsi replies to the reply. The conversation is now ongoing---just like in real life. Two strangers meet---they begin a superficial conversation---that turns into a deeper conversation once trust has been established. From this trust, the two people decide to bond and develop a friendship. This friendship creates a brand among people.  There are many people, but we only want to bond with our friends. Friendship is a brand that separates special people from all other people. Pepsi customers write posts to thier friends talking about the new soda---now a huge network of users has been created. These people seek out the soda because a brand has been created in thier minds.Friendship and conversation has created a brand.

This is a simple example of how conversations among brands are created. There must be a meeting place (a page), a reason to talk (content), with the resulting ongoing conversation (a "reply", a comment, etc. that creates a relationship between the product the and customer.  A brand has been created.

A conversation takes place like this:

•  Page
• Content
• Conversation
• Brand