Social Media Strategy and Branding: How to Create a Positioning Strategy?

Social Media Strategy and Branding: How to Create A Positioning Strategy?



Products have two sides to them. A product has a functional side. A product has a relational side. To be successful, products have to create an almost human relationship with their customers---they have to have a brand. Coke is a perfect example. Coke is an iconic brand in American culture, but it also has a function.

On a hot day in the summer time, Coke is a drink that people use to cool down. Coke has an almost human relationship with its customers. This relationship, this brand, is so intense, that there was a howl of protest when Coke tried to change the taste in 1984, even though tests proved that people felt that New Coke tasted better.

Coke is a bench mark brand in our social media era. In the Social Media era, a brand and its customers have to develop an almost human relationship. Let’s think in terms of our human relationships. There are many people in the world, but the people who are etched into our consciousness are our friends. Friends have brand that separates them from other people. There are people who are more attractive, smarter, classier, and cooler than our friends, but our friends are our friends. We want a relationship with our friends even though there are other people who are "better". This is a marketer’s goal. We need people to naturally gravitate to our product. To create this effect, a product must be "positioned". Our goal as marketers is to create products like Coke---we need people to seek out our brand, regardless.

"Poisitioning" is a strategy of perception. We have to define in the minds of our customers our brand. In marketing music, a customer has to understand that Kelly Rowland is different than Rihanna, and they have to desire Kelly’s music more than Rihanna’s. To do this, Kelly Rowland has to position herself as "The Stylish Brand" of dance R and B. Kelly Rowland is facing an issue that most marketers in most marketing spaces is now facing.

There has been an explosion of products. Seldom in the market place is one product overwhelmingly superior to another. To create a brand, a marketer must create, through the resources available to them for that particular product, a "perception" in the mind of the consumer that defines your brand in relation to others. This definition has to create clear cut differences, in the mind of the consumer, between your product and competitive products, when there are no obvious differences in the quality of the function of the product in relation to other brands.

In the case of Kelly Rowland, the competitive singers in her space are Rihanna and Ciara. In each case the ladies have great presence---in other words, each of them is just plain beautiful. Each of them can sing, and each of them can dance very well. If Kelly is to become the pre-eminent brand in dance R and B, she is going to have create perceptual differences between her and the other singers.

To create that brand she will have to position herself as the most "stylish". Kelly Rowland’s space in R and B is dance R and B. The music that this encompasses is the music that is played in clubs around the world, each weekend. Her demographic is ages 22-34. These are young professionals, either in the last two years of college, starting graduate school, or beginning their careers. These people are go to dance clubs on weekends, are interested in their bodies, go to gyms regularly like fashion, are either unmarried, or are involved in significant relationships, or are interested in creating dating relationships.

Friendships are important in the social media age. A brand is created when a friendship is created with a customer. The concept of friendship is important. People develop friendships with people who are most like themselves. Kelly Rowland’s demographic are stylish people. To create a brand, Kelly is going to have brand and position herself as the most stylish. If she can do this, she can create her brand. If Kelly can position herself as the most stylish, she wouldn’t have to be the best singer or the best dancer. That wouldn’t be the deciding factor in creating a friendship. She could position herself as the best "friend". Kelly’s friends (customers) are stylish. If Kelly is stylish, her customers will want to be her friends. We accept our friends and don’t reject them, Coke being the example. Her demographic aren’t themselves singers or dancers. They are very stylish. She can create her brand if she can consistently create the most visual package in her brand.

Kelly can establish her position by becoming the "Uncola" in R and B music. I will explain how she can do this in my next article.



Dean Hambleton

dnhambleton@gmail.com