How To Research Your Social Media Competitors? Discover 7 Powerful Steps Now!
Published: 2021-05-03 10:21:56

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813357267?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813357267?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" /></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Spying on your competitors might sound unethical to you, but it is an effective strategy that top companies use to <a href="https://www.softwarefirms.co/blog/expand-your-business-with-right-multichannel-marketing-strategy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increase their conversion and sales</a>. As you are reading this blog now, someone might be spying on your social media activity.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When it comes to social media, we all know that it has become the central platform for businesses to promote their brands.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><b><i>According to Buffer, Around 73% of business enterprises believed that social media is “somewhat effective” or “very effective” for them.</i></b></p>
<p><b><i><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813365082?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813365082?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" /></a></i></b></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Millions of brands are using social media to increase their sales, so to make social media platforms your promotion tools, it’s essential to have a solid social media presence.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">There are various strategies to boost your online presence on your social media. Researching social media competitors is one of them.</span></p>
<h2><b>Why Competitor Research Is An Effective Strategy?</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Competitor research is a proven way to determine who your competitors are and their strengths and weaknesses. It also gives you an idea of the strategies they are following and what's working or not working for them.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Instead of searching for new ideas that might have a risk of not working, it's an ideal choice to go for the market strategies that have already worked for your opponents. So, a social media competitor analysis gives you the following benefits.</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It helps you understand which brands are your competitors on social media.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It helps you know their target platform.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It enables you to seize their social media strategies</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It allows you to understand the type of content they are posting to engage users.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Identify social threats to your business.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It helps you find flaws in your social media strategy</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It lets you know about thSearch on Social Media Platforms influencers working with your rivals.</span></li>
</ul>
<h2><span style="font-weight: 400;">How To Do Social Media Competitive Analysis?</span></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Here is the step-by-step process of doing a social media competitive analysis.</span></p>
<h3><b>#Step 1. Find Out Your Competitor</b></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The first and vital step is finding out who your competitors are because if you don't have the proper knowledge of your competitor, then all your research will go in vain.</span></p>
<h4><span style="font-weight: 400;">Search on Social Media Platforms</span></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Since the most popular platforms for brand promotion are</span> <b>Facebook</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">,</span> <b>Instagram</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and</span> <b>Twitter</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">, I'm going to restrict myself to these platforms only.</span></p>
<h5><b>Facebook</b></h5>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">One of the practical and easiest ways to find your competitors is to use Facebook search. Type keyword in the Facebook search option that your consumers would write and pick the top 5 competitors from there.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">For example, If you have a pet supply store, you would Google "pet supplies," and it will show the top companies in that business.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813380081?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813380081?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" /></a></span></p>
<h5><b>Facebook Insights</b></h5>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Facebook insights allow you to see your competitor's weekly activity. You can see the latest post they published and the engagement they received on that post.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813390666?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813390666?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" /></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The next thing is to check which post received the most engagement; Since the target audience and your competitors are the same, this helps you understand the type of content your audience likes.</span></p>
<h5><b>Instagram</b></h5>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You can find your competitors' accounts on Instagram by doing the hashtag’s search.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813394052?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813394052?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" /></a></span></p>
<h5><b>Twitter</b></h5>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Like Facebook, Twitter also allows you to find your competitor by typing keywords in the search option.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Twitter also allows you to do a hashtag search to find your competitors. Pick the hashtag relevant to your niche, and Twitter will tell you which brands are using those hashtags are most.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813401679?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813401679?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" /></a></span></p>
<h3><b>#Step 2. Collect data using the analysis tool</b><br />
 <span style="font-weight: 400;">After you created a list of your competitors, the next step is to collect information about their social media profiles using analytics tools.</span></h3>
<p></p>
<ul>
<li>
<h4><b>Facebook Analytics</b></h4>
</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">&nbsp;Facebook analytics tool helps you to keep track of your competitors. Facebook</span> <b>“pages to watch”</b> <span style="font-weight: 400;">allows you to compare your competitor's total pages' likes, followers, total posts shared this week, total engagement this week with your own page.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How to use Facebook Pages To Watch?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Go on Insights from your Facebook Page, click Overview, and then scroll down the page to Add pages. The next step is to add at least 5 of your competitors.</span><br />
 <span style="font-weight: 400;">Facebook suggests new pages automatically; these pages are based on your previous search. If you add those suggested pages to your pages to the watch list,&nbsp; Facebook will notify them that they are added to the watch list, but Facebook will not reveal your identity.</span></p>
<p><b>Note: To use the Facebook Pages to Watch feature, you have to be the page's admin, which has at least 100 likes.</b></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So. if your page doesn’t have 100 likes than you can use the following tools to do competitors research on Facebook:</span></p>
<p></p>
<ul>
<li><b>Sprout Social</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Sociograph.io</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Quicksearch</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h4><b>&nbsp;&nbsp;2. Instagram Analytics</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You can use Instagram analytics tools to see your competitor's top posts, engagement growth, user interaction, hashtags used, best times to post, and many more.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Some of the best Instagram analytics tools are:</span></p>
<p></p>
<ul>
<li><b>SocialFox</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Sprout Social</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Iconsquare</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h4><b>&nbsp;&nbsp;3. Twitter Analytics</b></h4>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Twitter analysis tools allow you to analyze where you stand against your competitors. These tools&nbsp; allow you to check your competitor's photos and videos that received the highest engagement, hashtags used by your competitor, and total retweets their posts received.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Some of the best analytics tools for twitter are:</span></p>
<p></p>
<ul>
<li><b>Unbox Social</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Social Insider</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Tweet Charts</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h3><b>#Step 3. Keep Track Of Your Competitors Activity</b></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813422097?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813422097?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" /></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Keeping track of your competitor's social media activity is an essential aspect of competitive research. You should know how often your competitors post on social media, what time they usually post, and how they interact with their users.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The main reason behind this type of research is to identify your competitor's social media strategy. If that strategy works for them, it will likely work for you, too, since your target audience is the same.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">E.g., If your competitors are posting one post per day at 3:00 pm and getting maximum engagement, It's ideal that you should do the same.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">You can easily track your competitor using some analytic tools. some of the best tools that can help you track social media competitors are</span></p>
<p></p>
<ul>
<li><b>Sociality.io</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Sprout Social</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Social Insider</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Socialbakers</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h3><b>#Step 4.&nbsp; Focus On The Type Of Content Your Rivals Post</b></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813433678?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813433678?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" /></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Once you know how often your competitors publish a post on social media, the next step is to identify the type of content they are posting.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Here are some questions that you should keep in mind when looking at the type of content your competitors are posting:</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">What do they post most – videos, Infographic, Testimonials, pictures, or written posts?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Do they ask questions in their post?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Are they resharing their old content?</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Are they resharing their fans’ posts?</span></li>
</ul>
<h3><b>#Step 5. Lure The Influencers Working With Your Competitors</b></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813437075?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/8813437075?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full" /></a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Once you know about the influencers working with your competitor, then you can directly reach out to them and ask them to collaborate for you. Since your competitors are working with them, the influencers' followers might be interested in the services you offer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">How to find influencers working with your competitors?</span></p>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Check your competitor's social media handles to find their collaboration with influencers.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Check the backlinks of your competitors using tools like ahrefs.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Search for a branded hashtag on social media.</span></li>
</ul>
<h2><b>Conclusion</b></h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Keeping an eye on your competitor is an important market strategy to position yourself in the market.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Researching your social media competitors helps you understand their strategy to get engagement from users. That will give you an idea of what type of content you should post on social media to get maximum attention from your audience.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In this blog, I’ve stated the step-by-step process of doing competitive analysis, so make sure you don’t miss any points to make your competitive research a success.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">What’s your way to do competitive analysis on social media?&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I’d love to hear your strategies of doing competitive analysis.</span></p>