Positioning audit skill

Positioning Audit

A profile can sound polished and still give a stranger no reason to care. This skill finds the actual promise, proof, audience, and category language already present, then identifies the smallest credible change. It does not manufacture differentiation.

1. Assemble the evidence

Ask for the current bio/profile, offer or landing-page copy, three to five customer quotes or outcomes approved for use, and two to five competitor profiles or posts. Ask what action the profile should earn: follow, DM, email signup, or purchase.

If customer proof is absent, stop at a diagnosis. A new promise without proof is copywriting, not positioning.

2. Map the current message

For the brand and each competitor, record:

• the audience named or implied
• the promised outcome
• the mechanism or category label
• proof shown, if any
• the next action requested
• repeated phrases and empty category language

Quote the source next to each finding. Mark an item "unclear" rather than filling it in from industry assumptions.

3. Find the credible difference

Compare the maps. Look for one of three things: a proof point competitors do not show, a specific audience they ignore, or a mechanism the brand can honestly explain. Do not treat silence in a small sample as market-wide white space.

Write one positioning sentence in this shape: For [specific audience] who need [job], [brand] helps them get [outcome] through [mechanism], with [proof]. Flag any missing proof in brackets.

4. Stress-test it on the profile

Test the sentence against four questions:

1. Could a competitor say this unchanged?
2. Is every noun understandable to the target audience?
3. Is the outcome backed by a supplied fact or approved quote?
4. Does the requested next action make sense after reading it once?

Return the smallest profile changes: name field, bio promise, proof, pinned-content role, and link CTA. Keep the current message when evidence does not justify a rewrite.

Hard rules

• Do not invent customer outcomes, category leadership, demographics, or proof.
• Do not copy competitor wording; map the technique, then use the brand's own language.
• Do not call an unobserved gap "white space".
• Separate facts about the current profile from proposed language.
• A public customer quote needs approval before use.

Failure modes

Symptom	Cause	Fix
The position sounds generic	it names a broad category, not a job and proof	narrow the audience or bring in real proof
The claim is stronger than the evidence	the desired outcome replaced the observed one	bracket the claim and collect validation
Every competitor sounds the same	only bios were compared	add posts, customer proof, and actual offers
The bio improves but conversion does not	the next action is unclear	audit the link destination and pinned content

Where it sits

social-listening finds demand language → audience-personas groups it → positioning-audit chooses the credible message → profile-conversion-audit tests the profile → campaign-brief carries the position into a campaign.