Paying attention to what your competition is doing on social media is a well-known best practice. This practice has undeniable benefits, allowing you to identify growth opportunities by learning from your competitors. On the flip side, it is also possible to fixate on comparing your brand to your competition. This might result in trying to mimic strategies that worked for your competitors with varying levels of success.
What worked for your competition is not guaranteed to work for you. Offering a similar service does not assure similar success if you borrow their strategies because:
- Your brand elements such as personality and voice are different
- You may have varied budgets, as well as team capacity and capabilities
- You stand the risk of losing credibility and brand equity by appearing as a copy-cat
At Reactionpower, we believe that it is less about standing out and more about truly mastering what a brand has to offer. In the end, we have found that by focusing more on what makes your brand special, you stand out for all the right reasons.
“People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us.”
– Simon Sinek
Here is how you can focus more on what you have to offer and accomplish your social media goals.
- Find out who you are talking to. If you are speaking to everyone, you are speaking to no one. To get to know your target audience beyond pure demographics, ask yourself what motivates them, what their deepest fears are, what their goals are, what barriers or excuses keep them from using your products or services.
- Figure out what makes you special. If you don’t know what makes your brand special, neither will your audience. What is unique about your brand and why should people care? Is your personality the thing that makes you special? Is it the personalized service that you offer that differentiates you from the crowd? Be very specific.
- Cancel out the noise. It may be tempting to jump on the latest trend or the newest social network. Before doing so, examine the relevance to your brand and only proceed if you believe the trend will be useful in achieving your social media goals. Remember that a reputation built in 15 years can be damaged in just 5 minutes and exercise caution when evaluating trends.
Whether your objective is to increase revenue, build brand awareness or foster relationships, focusing more on what you have to offer is a sure way of succeeding.
