You know because you’ve been there. Scrolling right past the posts that look like everyone else’s. It’s so important to the health of your brand to avoid falling into this sameness trap. We know, we know, it takes too much time to develop your own unique content, especially if you’re new and need something to model as you get started. But if every post you contribute to your category looks the same, you’re paying a “sameness tax,” and based on recent research, we can guarantee your audience is probably scrolling right past you. New findings published in the Journal of Marketing by an AMA-affiliated team of researchers confirm what we’ve seen in the field: brands that deliberately diverge from competitors’ content on social media earn higher engagement and faster follower growth.
The AMA’s Findings
Researchers analyzed 199 large consumer retail brands on X across five years. They measured how similar each brand’s posts were to their closest competitors and mapped content into a three-tier hierarchy:
- Tier 1: One-way info – promos, product updates; this is what everyone does.
- Tier 2: Community engagement – conversation, replies, spotlights; only about 61% do this.
- Tier 3: Co-creation & interaction -polls, UGC, live Q&A, ideas shaping product/content; approximately 35% do this.
Key result: Brands that differentiate themselves by moving beyond Tier 1 into Tiers 2–3 outperform on engagement and follower growth, especially when they adapt quickly to new platform features.
Why your brand should care
- Positioning lives in public. Your feed teaches the market who you are. If it mirrors competitors, you reinforce category blur. Differentiation clarifies positioning in real time.
- Community is a moat. Tiers 2–3 generate owned attention (replies, UGC, ideas). That signals relevance to algorithms and builds memory structures for humans.
- Speed compounds. Early use of new features earns outsized reach; slow adopters look derivative.
- Better inputs, better marketing. Co-creation surfaces language, objections, and use cases you can feed back into web, email, SEO, and product.
How we use these findings to sharpen your positioning
The AMA takeaway is clear: brands that move beyond one-way promos into community and co-creation win. Site Hub helps you operationalize that shift.
Our Creative team shapes an authentic editorial stance. We create distinct imagery, SEO-ready webpages, blogs, and social posts that actually say something new, while our targeting work makes sure those ideas meet the right people at the right moments across the funnel (not just the ones ready to buy today).
We pair this with analysis. Weekly research and performance reads that map how closely your content mirrors competitors and where you can diverge. Then we respond by adjusting tone, topics, and formats to stay relevant as the platform evolves. When it’s time to scale what’s working, we look for the right formats in the right inventory to amplify community and co-creation moments instead of more of the same.
In short, we define a message that feels true to your brand, turn it into content that invites participation, aim with precision, and keep fine-tuning it as the market moves. All this so your positioning shows up clearly in public, where it counts.
Reference: Lysyakov, M., Kannan, P.K., Viswanathan, S., & Zhang, K. (2025, May 20). Standing Out in the Scroll: Why Content Differentiation Beats Imitation on X. Journal of Marketing (American Marketing Association).
