On the Menu for This Week’s Tapas:

• [STORY] ✈️ Why Southwest plays a different game (and wins)
• [FRAMEWORK] 🎯 The 4-step strategy formula I swear by
• [REMINDER] 📌 Social media is a channel, not a strategy.

I watch this video every 6-9 months.

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Because it is the best explanation of what strategy actually is and no one seems to care about why that matters, but first... A STORY.

I had two family weddings the same weekend.

One in Nashville, the next one in Durham, North Carolina 24-hours later.

Since the cities are an 8-hour drive apart, I was ready to book with Delta… except Delta had no flights between the two cities. My only direct option was Southwest.

That wasn’t an accident. It was a strategic choice.

Southwest intentionally avoids big flight hub cities like Atlanta (Delta) and Charlotte (American Airlines).

Because Southwest doesn’t chase mass-market travelers.

They’re actually known in some circles as a “salesperson’s little helper” because the brand has a reputation for being reliable for last-minute, affordable, short-haul flights between cities that aren’t major destinations.

Here’s the genius behind this:

• Customer Problem: Tons of people would rather drive or take a Greyhound than mess with a giant airline in a major city.
• Insight: For those travelers, convenience and price beat fancy perks and luxury vibes every time.
• Southwest's Unique Advantage: Their small, scrappy fleet of 747s could slip into smaller airports easily without needing the pomp-and-circumstance of fancy gates for massive planes.
• Strategy: “Be the Greyhound bus of the sky”. This way they could accommodate short, affordable direct flights to the small cities that big airlines didn't see enough profit margin from so they ignored altogether.

They had a "way in", not a "strategic plan.”

A "way in" is a clear reason you could win where others won't try because they don't have your competitive advantage.

A "strategic plan" is just pulling out your calendar to be sure you can hit your metrics by EOY.

My favorite strategist, Mark Pollard, breaks strategy into four steps:

1. Problem. There’s many enemies you could fight. You should find the one your customer fights the most.
2. Insight. The human or market truth (look for this in data) that feels true without putting it into so many words.
3. Advantage. What you can deliver is better, faster, or cheaper than others in the space.
4. Strategy. The plan for winning based on the first three.

So why does this matter for content or social media marketing?

You can use this framework to find a “way in” for how you establish your marketing mix.

Too many brands use social media like the end-all be all because it’s what their competitors are doing.

But social media is the channel you use to serve your strategy.

(Anyone who posts a "Steal My Instagram Strategy" really gets under my skin because that's not a strategy.)

When you focus on your strategic “way in”, you become less concerned with every algorithm update, and instead lock-in on how you can use the new features to serve your strategic needs.

Remember: Southwest didn’t have faster planes or deeper pockets.

They had the same (if not more) limits every airline has.

But they won by zeroing in on a price-sensitive traveler in overlooked, lower-revenue cities…

Those two factors led them to become the leading airline in Passenger Seat Miles in America.

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I believe we can win while protecting what gives us an edge — it's called strategy,