Skip to main content

Learning From Your Competition


When you’re starting from scratch with content and you’re looking for inspiration, competitors are a great place to start. Although this is a good jumping off point, be careful not to assume that just because they’re doing it a certain way, that it’s the best strategy. Always keep in mind what speaks most authentically to you and your brand before drawing inspiration from another.




From looking at your competitors’ social profiles you can see:
  • ·        How often they post
  • ·        What days of the week and times of the day they post
  • ·        How large their follower bases are
  • ·        What specific types of organic, sponsored, and ad content they post
  • ·        Which types of posts get the most engagement

By capturing this information in a spreadsheet or a format that works well for your organization, you are able to see patterns that show what is working and what isn’t.







Lessons to learn from Competitors on Social Media

                     Different approaches to Social Media Marketing:

Observing social media activity can reveal plenty about a brand’s marketing strategy. Look at which social channels other businesses are most active on, how often they post updates, what time of day they share content, and whether or not any of their content is sponsored (i.e., whether they pay to get more views and engagement). Size up how effective a brand’s social media marketing tactics are by looking at their engagement levels, and take note of brands receiving a consistently high number of comments, shares, likes, and replies.

   What Content Sparks The Most Engagement:

Successfully connecting with consumers on social media requires sharing content that inspires engagement. Following similar businesses and brands to see what type of content their audience enjoys most (ex. Do certain hashtags or keywords result in more retweets or reactions?) important to consider how content can be repurposed and presented differently across multiple social networks.

 Find Consumers and Influencers to Follow:

Several things businesses can learn from analyzing their competitors’ social media fans and followers. The consumers following competitors can reveal insights into the target audience of the business you represent, including online behaviors and preferred social media channels.

Scoping out a competitor’s connections can help identify industry influencers who might be interested in partnering up or reviewing products. Remember to always look at the competitor’s followers as well as who the competitor is following back.

 Social Media Tactics to Avoid:

 Businesses can also learn from their competitors’ mistakes. Anytime a business or brand fails to address a negative comment or acknowledge a customer
concern, it presents an opportunity for competing brands to think about how they could have handled the situation better.

 Relevant Industry News and Trends:

 Brands can use social media to gain awareness about trending topics, events, and anything else top industry brands or local competitors are posting about.
Following competitors on Twitter is like subscribing to a steady stream of relevant industry news. Whether checking out what they’re retweeting or following links to their latest blog posts, other brands in the industry are sources of real-time updates and information that may be relevant.






Understanding your Competition

·        Perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of your current and future competitors.
·        
     Social media can be your best friend in analyzing the competition. Use a private Twitter list to shield your competitors from knowing that you are watching their behavior and notice which of their posts get the most retweets and likes.
·       
     Facebook and Instagram Insights have a slate of tools available for you, including the useful “Pages to Watch” section.
·       
     Companies like Hootsuite and Oktopost allow you to compare your social media strategy against others like yours in terms of sharing, click-through rates, and total views.


Thanks for reading! As always, use these blogs as a guidepost for finding your voice, but always use social to be true to yourself and your brand and tell YOUR story!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jenny Okumura - Contemporary Artist

We sat down with Jenny Okamura, a Contemporary Artist here in Boston to discuss using social media to connect with other artists offline, letting your personality shine through in your posts without being too personal, and the connection between Instagram and Arthur Rambauld The Stats: Instagram @Jennyjean25 12.8k followers On the surface, Jenny Okumura paints beautifully moving fine art. But beyond that, she’s also a poet, she’s the President of the National Association of Women’s Artists MA Chapter, she manages Gallatea where she brings women artists together. And she has a story to tell.   When it comes to sharing that story on social media, it can be a fine line between giving followers a glimpse into a more personal side of herself and her art, while focusing on running it like a business. Jenny does an amazing job with this balance - so much so that she’s racked up almost 13k followers in the year and a half since she started using Instagram. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Getting Started with Video Content

According to HubSpot, social media posts with video content have 48% more views. Clearly, video is the way to go when it comes to quickly engaging your followers in new content.   Many marketers say that they struggle with “what” to create videos about. Just like we recommended for other content, if you don’t know where to begin - start with what has worked for you so far, and then look to your competitors. Sort your blog content in order of most traffic and create videos around those topics. Use Facebook “Pages to Watch” to figure out what kind of videos your competitors are making and generate topic ideas based off of that. Also, think about using your customers as resources. Look outside of your specific industry to your favorite brands. In terms of video best-practices, there are some simple factors that people are more likely to interact with.   The first factor is video length. On Facebook, for exa mple, the highest engaging videos are between 60...
Post a Comment
Read more