Do you want to discover how to dominate your competition and be successful with social media marketing? You can achieve that through social media competitive analysis.
A competitive analysis reveals how effective your brand's approach is compared to your competitors' social media strategies.Additionally, it aids in the identification of new opportunities for social media use and potential risks to your company.
Social media competitive analysis aims to understand how well your customers are doing and what rivals are doing better and wrong. Besides, it helps you understand how you can improve outcomes.
Here are the key reasons why you should perform social media competitive analysis:
For instance, if you see your competitor's audience likes humor, you can decide to adopt a similar strategy and see how it turns out.
It's true that in business, you need to learn from the mistakes of others because some mistakes are too expensive to commit. You wouldn't want to repeat the same error if another company posted anything insensitive inreaction to a hot news item.
Understanding industry trends helps you to comprehend the context of your competitor's social performance.
If your rivals are not super active on a platform that is well-liked by your target, you have an opportunity to capture some of their attention there.
Analyzing competitors on social media doesn't have to be difficult. Here are the main stages of social media competitor analysis, regardless of whether you utilize LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, orTikTok.
Find out your social media rivals and which platforms they utilize first.Ideally, you are already aware of who your primary rivals are. However, it goes beyond that. You need to concentrate on rivals who actively utilize social network marketing to expand their businesses.
Look at companies that actively utilize social media, compare yourself to these businesses, and learn from them. If a company doesn't have a defined brand identity, you wouldn't want to compare your social media approach to theirs. Instead, take a cue from companies in your sector that have made social media a cornerstone of their marketing plans.
So how do you discover these competitors? Google is the best resource for locating your competitors. Look up the terms that customers might use to discover your company. The results should give many companies working in your sector.
Large internet markets like Amazon and Target may be ruled out. Concentrate on sites relevant to your sector, typically regarded as perfect competitors. The next step is to visit each website and see which social media platforms they utilize and if they are active there.
The header or footer of most websites includes a reference to their social network pages.
The bulk of this procedure is made up of data collecting and processing. To make it simpler, choose a practical analytic tool to research, examine, and contrast the competitor's performance.
Although you may already have brand KPIs, below are a few crucial social media indicators to find your competitors social media metrics:
1. Account impression/reach/impressions
2. Followers number
3. Participationrates
4. Social media advertising trends
5. Ratio of voices
6. Estimated organic page visitors
7. Number of keywords the rival uses
Once you have your KPIs and social media indicators to monitor your competitor, you need to ask yourself a few questions in your analysis to understand a competitors social media metrics. The following are some of the queries you should think of to enhance the social media competitive analysis further:
· What is the audience growth rate of your rivals?
· How would you describe their content strategy? Which kind of content (informative, aspirational, or entertaining) do they prioritize?
· What content types (texts, video, carousels, lives, etc. do they employ?
· What time frame do they provide updates?
· Which updates get the most shares, likes, and other forms of engagement?
· What is the typical level of engagement?
· What social media marketing do they employ in addition to natural advertising? Is it influencer marketing, paid advertisements, referrals, sponsored articles, or compensated partnerships?
· How do they plan to use hashtags? What hashtags do they exactly use? How often, and how many?
Put everything you've already examined into a spreadsheet to make it easy to monitor and assess data quickly.
When assessing your social media rivals, data analysis is vital, but the interpretation of the data is even more crucial. If you don't know how to apply the data gathered for business intelligence, all you'll have in your spreadsheet will just be lines, numbers, and charts.
Make a 4-part SWOT analysis chart for your approach using the information from the spreadsheet. SWOT analysis gives you a thought full review of your brand's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to aid corporate decision-making.
Performing a competitive social analysis is not the end of your journey to success. You must monitor both your profile and that of your competitors.Monitoring account progress helps you to:
· Track brand development
· Take note of fresh competitors immediately
· Check the effectiveness of your social media campaign.
· Find fresh prospects for growth
· Keep your marketing strategy current.
It's important to stay updated on both social media and industry developments. Follow a schedule to examine your social media competition regularly, whether yearly, half-yearly, quarterly, or monthly. Ensure you update your competition research spreadsheet to spot any fresh opportunities or threats.
Building a strong social presence, client trust, and brand credibility is possible with the help of social media competitive analysis, which is essential to your company's success.
You may do this research on any of your existing social network pages after you have mastered the processes above. To enhance your social media strategy, identify your brand objectives and transform studied, categorized analytics into context-rich insights.