How to Analyze Your Competition on Social Media

If your business is on social media, you’ve probably noticed that it’s gradually getting harder to keep up with – platforms change, and content is constantly growing.

One of the foundational ways to help develop a social media strategy is to scope out what your competitors are doing. This doesn’t mean you should be a copycat brand, but understanding the competition will help you make informed decisions about your own strategy going forward and how you should take advantage of opportunities. In this post, you’ll discover ideas and questions to consider when analyzing your competitors’ social accounts to inspire new ideas and optimizations.

Why Look at Your Competition?

Researching your competition on social media should inspire you to create better content and to effectively connect with your audience. By analyzing your competitors, you can set realistic benchmarks based on what others in your industry are seeing in terms of fan growth and engagement. It also helps lay the framework for a successful social media strategy for your own brand based on what you learn of others in your space.

Two Questions to Consider When Analyzing Your Competition’s Social Media

1. What social platforms are your competitors utilizing?

When pursuing a social media strategy, you’ll need to decide which social network or networks to use. This is a question that can be best answered by your competitors.

The social networks most businesses use today are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram. It may be a good idea to search your competitors on these platforms and creating a spreadsheet to record their fan and follower counts on each profile. You may discover that your competition isn’t using Pinterest at all, or maybe they have profiles on that network, but with no followers. This discovery could indicate that you could be the first to be successful on those networks. Or if your competition is already on a network, what can you do differently to create a better experience for your audience?

2. What types of content are they posting?

By looking at what type of content your competitors are posting, you can measure how successful the various channels are in regards to fan involvement and engagement. This analysis can help determine whether the type of content you should post, when you should post them, and the type of captions you should include with the posts for best engagement opportunities.

Here’s a list of content types to look into:

-Photos
-Videos
-Polls
-Contests
-Questions/trivia
-Endorsements/sponsorships

Having a variety of unique content will keep your brand’s content fresh, relevant, and keeping your audience engaged.

By looking at how your target consumer engages with your competitors, you’ll gain insights on how to effectively interact with them through social media. We’re not suggesting copying your competition, but simply observing and learning from their activity, as well as your own.

Utilizing these questions and staying curious will ensure your continued growth and engagement on social media. Do you have other items to add? Comment below and tell us what you think!