The effect of social media on brand city positioning: Comparison between Antalya and Izmir

Today, cities can be managed like corporate brands in order to attract more and more money spending city visitors, as well as to attract higher spending investment and to accommodate a more qualified workforce. City promotion, which is a an important point in the management process of city brands, is managed together with all channels. In our age, with the rapid development of technology and the rapid increase in the rate of internet usage, the activity of the consumer in online platforms has increased. The rapid and positive change in the social media usage habits of the cities that have become a brand or want to become a brand has also become indispensable in terms of city brand management. At this point, Instagram, one of the social media tools, is one of the distinguishing features of the city brand image. In this context, in order to reveal the role of social media in the city brand management process, Antalya's representative account on Instagram ''antalyabb'' and İzmir's representative account ''izmirbuyuksehirbelediyesi'' were compared. Content analysis method was used in the study and it was determined that Instagram, one of the social media channels, has a positive effect on the representation of the city brand in the city brand management process by using the data obtained.