Whether you like it or not, competition will always exist among businesses and business owners. The real question is not why they are competing, but rather, what can I do to have an edge over my competitors? This question right here brings us to our subject matter: how to improve your business with social media for market or competitor research.
First of all, what is social media competitor research/analysis? Let us look at how others define it.
SemRush.com says a social media competitor analysis involves collecting and evaluating information about your competitors’ social media presence. Which helps you understand their strengths and weaknesses and reveals ways you can improve your own social media strategy.
Forsta.com Social media market research means collecting data and insights about your target market via the social media platforms they use.
In a nutshell, it is using information of other people to modify your business.
According to research, almost 60% of the world’s population uses social media. While some people use it just for fun, a large majority use it for business and other commercial purposes. This article will focus on using social media to research competitors and markets. To effectively use social media for this purpose, one must understand the intentions of their target audience and study their competitors. Now that we understand what social media is and how it is used for different purposes, let’s move on to how to conduct social media competitor analysis and research.
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How To Do A Social Media Competitor Analysis
Here are the steps to analyze your competitors and refine your social media strategy:
1. Identify Your Competitors.
To identify your competitors, start by asking yourself a few questions. First, define your brand and the services you offer. Then, determine which businesses are in the same line of work as yours. Finally, analyze what makes them stand out from your brand and why people may choose them over yours.
To understand your competition, it’s important to have a clear understanding of your own brand. This knowledge can help you foster healthy competition. Below are the steps you can follow to identify your competitors:
- Search your product category or name on Google.
- Create a list of the top 10 to 15 brands that rank for that keyword.
- Identify your competitors. There are two types of competitors: those who sell the same product or service as you do to the same audience, and those who offer the same product or service to a different audience.
2. Analyze Their Business Platforms
To gain an edge over your competitors, it’s important to analyze their business platforms. Here are some things to consider during your analysis:
- How big is their company in terms of the number of leaders and employees?
- How long has the company been operating?
- What job openings are they listing on LinkedIn and other job search sites?
By answering these questions, you can gain valuable insights into your competitors’ business structures.
3. What Are Their Areas Of Expansion?
To stay ahead of the competition, it is important to evaluate their content and activity. This will help you understand what they are doing to remain on top of their game. You should consider questions such as:
- What marketing channels do your competitors use to publish organic content? This may include websites, landing pages, social media platforms, and email.
- What benefits or outcomes does your competitor’s product deliver for customers?
- What data do they cite to support their claims about their products’ benefits?
- What pricing structure do your competitors use?
- What is the general public sentiment regarding your competitors based on mentions, product reviews, and social media likes and comments? This includes both positive and negative feedback.
By answering these questions, you can gain valuable insights into your competitors’ strategies and use this information to improve your own approach.
4. Conduct a SWOT Analysis.
Now that you have carried out competitor research by analyzing and evaluating others, it is time to evaluate yourself and your business. Conducting a SWOT analysis will help you identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
- Strengths: What are your strongest points compared to your competitors? What do you think you have that they don’t?
- Weaknesses: What weaknesses do you see in your competitors’ branding, marketing, customer journeys, and products?
- Opportunities: What opportunities do you see for your business to capitalize on?
- Threats: What could stand in your way? What might pose an hindrance to your strategy?
5. Refine Your Social Media Strategy.
Conducting competitor research is essential to understanding how to position your business or brands for increased visibility, growth, and sales. After following steps 1 to 4, incorporate your findings into your strategy. This will help you drive more traffic and boost your sales.
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Tools for Competitor Analysis
Sprout Social: Provides a variety of social media competitor analysis features that enable you to measure your performance against your industry competitors.
Hootsuite: Helps brands keep an eye on their competitor’s social media accounts, including Instagram, Facebook, and X (formerly known as Twitter). It also enables you to track the performance of your competitor’s content and compare engagement metrics.
Semrush: This is the most widely used SEO tool on the market. It offers data on competitors’ social media profiles, top-performing content, and audience engagement.
Ahrefs: A powerful SEO tool used to analyze high-ranking competitors and how to outrank them.
Other tools that offer competition tracking include Phlanx for Instagram, YouTube, X, and Twitch, as well as Brandwatch, Alexa, Mention, SpyFu, and Google Alerts.
Social Media Platforms You Can Use
There are various social media platforms, each with its own algorithm. In this section, we will list different social media platforms we can perform competitor research.
- Twitter (formerly called ‘X’)
- TikTok
- YouTube
- Forums
Customer Review Sites
- Google My Business and Trustpilot for small businesses
- Trip Advisor for the travel sector
- Glassdoor, Indeed and LinkedIn for employers
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Conclusion
Businesses don’t just thrive because of sales; but also thrive because of the efforts and input of business owners and brand strategists. By conducting social media competitor research or analysis, you can identify gaps in your content and learn how to modify and deliver premium products and services. This article provides you with social media tools, platforms, and instructions on how to conduct a social media competitor analysis to boost your business.
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