How to do Competitor Social Media Analysis [Step by Step]

Analyzing your competitors’ social media is vital if you want to grow your business, but how exactly does it work, and what are the best techniques?

Sure, you’ve spied on your rivals’ Instagram feeds, and you check their Facebook feeds now and again, but if you really want to understand how they motivate their audience, build their following, and win over customers, you need to get more analytical.

Competitor social media analysis can be either simple or complex, from manual templates or with your fingertips from social media competitor analysis tools. This approach gives you precious insights into how your rivals are performing online and engaging with their audience. Armed with this knowledge, you can make smarter decisions for your own business.

So, buckle up as we take you through the process step by step, sharing awesome social media analysis examples, tips, and tools to give you that competitive edge in your industry.

What are the Benefits of Competitors’ Social Media Analysis?

Checking out what your competitors are up to on social media can be a game-changer for your business. It’s like peeking into their secret playbook and gaining valuable insights to level up your own online game. Before learning how to do competitor social media analysis, let’s dive into the wholesome benefits of competitor analysis on social media activities:

1. Benchmarking: Comparing your skills with your rivals to see where you stand. The competitors’ analysis on social media helps you check out their strategies, strengths, and weaknesses, you can set realistic goals and figure out where you need to improve.

2. Identifying trends and best practices: By spying on your competitors, you can spot industry trends and tactics that are winning over your target audience. This way, you can adapt your own social media strategy and stay one step ahead.

3. Discovering gaps in the market: By identifying hidden treasures waiting to be explored, you can create unique and valuable content that sets you apart from the competition.

4. Monitoring competitor activity: By keeping an eye on what they’re doing, you’ll always be in the know about their latest product launches, promotions, and marketing campaigns. This info will help you make smart decisions and respond quickly to changes in the competitive landscape.

5. Improving customer engagement: Learning how your competitors interact with their customers on social media can teach you a thing or two. You can pick up on their successes and failures to make sure your brand stays responsive and connected to your audience.

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How to Conduct a Social Media Competitor Analysis Step by Step

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1. Identifying Your Main Competitors

Keeping an eye on your social media competitors is a must. By understanding their strategies and tactics, you can boost your own marketing efforts and stay ahead. To find your competitors, you need to know the direct and indirect ones.

Direct competitors offer similar products or services to the same audience. They’re your main competition and have a similar online presence. Indirect competitors may not offer the same things, but they target a similar audience or meet related needs, so they’re worth monitoring.

To find them, you can Google it or search for keywords people would use to find your business on social media. For example, if you’re a Modern-Chinese rooftop bar in Bangkok you could search for modern Chinese rooftop spots, modern-Chinese hangouts in Bangkok.

Now, let’s find them on different platforms:

2. Gather the Competitor’s information

Let’s dive into the next step of analyzing your competitors on social media. To get an accurate picture of what they’re up to, it’s time to click on their profiles and dive deep into their social media world. Here are the key pieces of information you need to look out for:

• Which platforms are they active on?
• How active are they? / How frequently do they post or upload?
• What is their share of voice?
• What kind of content do they post?
• What kind of hashtags are they using?
• How many followers, and how much engagement?

By answering these questions, you’ll gain a better understanding of what makes your competitors tick. You’ll learn from their successes and their not-so-successful moves. There’s also a treasure trove of insights waiting for you when you use social media analytics tools–they’ll help you uncover hidden data and take your analysis to the next level.

Tip: don’t forget to track your own data using the same questions. Compare your performance against theirs and identify areas where you can improve; that’s how you stay on top of the game!

3. Analyzing Your Competitors’ Social Media Presence

Right now, you’ve gathered info on your competitors’ social media game. Now it’s time to dig deeper and see what’s working for them and what’s not. This way, you’ll know their strong and weak points, helping you make better choices for your own social media plan.

• Best-performing & Worst-performing content

Take note of the content that’s getting them the most love. Are they using pictures, videos, infographics, or a mix? This helps you see what kind of content grabs the most attention. Also, check out their not-so-great posts with low engagement or bad feedback. Figure out why these didn’t do well – bad timing, off-topic, or just not interesting to their audience? By learning from their slip-ups, you can avoid making the same mistakes.

• Engagement Rate

Look at your competitors’ follower count and how much people are interacting with their posts, like likes, comments, and shares. This info shows you how well their social media approach and content are working.

• Post Frequency

Keep an eye on how often they’re posting. Do they have a regular schedule, or is it all over the place? Look at their recent posts and see how much time passes between each one. Are they posting daily, a few times a week, or less? This gives you an idea of how active they are right now.

• Audience Sentiment:

Read the comments on your competitors’ social media posts. Look for common themes, the tone of the comments, and the overall vibe their audience is giving off. You can also track mentions of your competitors across platforms and analyze the context and feelings behind these Social mentions to understand what people are saying about them.

4. Monitoring Competitors’ Social Media

Remember to dedicate some time every few months to check out what your competitors are doing on social media. It’s essential to stay in the loop and keep your strategy up-to-date. Update your analysis template with the latest findings and use them to give your own social media approach a boost.

Staying updated with what your competitors are up to on social media is crucial for any business. But keeping tabs on them can be a challenge. Luckily, there are tools that can help make it easier.

Social media monitoring tools allow you to analyze your competitors’ performance and gain valuable insights into their strategies. You can track their posts, engagement levels, followers, and more. You can even set up notifications to alert you when they make a new post or reach a certain level of engagement.

One excellent tool that can assist you in this process is Mandala AI. It offers a comprehensive analysis of your competitor’s social media presence, providing you with up-to-date information and useful features. Dive into the details by tracking mentions, keywords, and more to uncover valuable insights. Identify any gaps in your marketing plan and discover emerging trends to gain a competitive edge.

5. Seize The Opportunities For Your Social Media Improvement

Now comes the exciting part of Competitors’ Social Media Analysis—finding ways to improve your own social media game! After digging deep into your competitors’ strategies, strengths, and weaknesses, it’s time to put that knowledge to good use and boost your online presence.

1. Spot those gaps in your competitors’ content or approach and seize the chance to stand out.
   
   If they’re slacking in engaging with their audience, go above and beyond by being super responsive, personalizing your communication, and actively managing your online community.

2. Explore ways to showcase and differentiate your unique selling propositions.
   
   Pay attention to the formats, tone, and frequency of successful posts, and incorporate these elements into your own content plan. Nevertheless, do not forget to keep up with the latest trends and tools to keep your strategy fresh and impactful.

3. Learn from your competitors’ mistakes and shortcomings.
   
   Observe any negative feedback or unmet expectations from their audience and address those issues proactively in your own strategy. This will help you build trust and credibility, leading to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

4. Set clear KPIs to measure your progress and make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement. By consistently evaluating your social media efforts and adapting to the ever-changing landscape, you can effectively seize opportunities and stay ahead of the competition.

3 Tools for Social Media Competitor Analysis (and Monitoring)

Ready to analyze your social media competitors? We get it – marketing and business can be tough. Check out these cool tools that make competitor analysis a breeze, they’ll help you stay ahead of the game.

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1. Mandala AI.

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Whether you’re just starting out or a seasoned pro, Mandala AI is a game-changer for marketing strategy and uncovering online opportunities simply with your fingertips.

It’s got Social Listening and monitoring Tools that anyone can use, and the Tag Management and Social Listening systems give you insights into what people think about our brand and competitors. You can stay on top of trends and dig into data from all the major social media platforms on one dashboard.

Apart from the data exploration, get creative with Mandala AI’s new trends discovery feature in Mandala Cosmos’. It acts as a valuable compass for marketers, providing them with up-to-date insights and trends from the vast online landscape. You can explore current keyword trends, hashtag trends, Twitter & Google trends, or even emojis trends.

Best part? It’s super user-friendly, so you can easily share info with your team and track projects. With a strong team and Mandala AI, success is within reach.

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2. Phlanx

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Engagement Rate is the lifeblood of content marketing. It goes beyond basic social media stats and gives you insights into your competitors’ performance. That’s where Phlanx comes in. It’s an Instagram engagement calculator that reveals valuable information about your competitors’ Instagram presence.

As a plus, Phlanx also helps you distinguish the real influencers from the fakes, ensuring you connect with accounts that have a genuine following. No more falling for phony influencers.

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3. Social Blade

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Having a successful social media brand takes a large number of followers, but keeping track of our rivals’ follower counts can be exhausting. Social Blade comes into play as a popular tool among YouTubers and content creators for tracking user growth and trends. It can leverage Social Blade for analyzing and gathering statistics for platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook; also daily follower updates and even displays a live follower count.

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Conducting competitors’ social media analysis is inevitably a vital step in boosting your own social media strategy, and you have seen earlier that it’s not as complicated as it may seem. By gathering and examining key metrics and data from different platforms, you’ll uncover valuable insights and business opportunities. 

Mandala AI is here to simplify things for you. With user-friendly features and innovative social listening capabilities, it’s the perfect tool for businesses of all sizes to dive into your competitors’ insights, understand consumer behavior, and propel your marketing efforts toward remarkable success – Try out Mandala Analytics free for 15 days here.

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What are you waiting for?

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Competitor social media analysis is something you should be doing yesterday, it’s not difficult and it can be added to your marketing strategy with ease. Once you have a good understanding of your competitors’ social media strengths and weaknesses, your own strategy becomes so much clearer, and you can move forward knowing that you’re maximizing your chances of success.