Time to read: 5 minutes
Wondering how and why you should perform a competitor analysis via social media? Seeing how your competition connects with your ideal buyer can help you generate ideas on how to engage with potential customers. Keep reading to see what we uncovered.
What is Social Media Competitor Analysis?
Ever wonder how some brands have loads of followers and are constantly getting natural engagement online? A thorough social media competitor analysis helps identify your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses to develop a working social marketing strategy.
Overall, this is the process of analyzing your competitors through various social channels to help identify new opportunities for your business and help grow your brand by implementing different approaches.
Doing this research also helps identify why your target audience might be interested in competitor brands and how brands target them through social media marketing. The overall goal is to find out relevant information about your target audience and then implement new strategies to build your brand.
Top Platforms to Keep an Eye On
It seems like every year, there is a new frontrunner among social media apps. However, popularity means nothing if your customer base isn’t using it. Here are the most popular platforms and what types of audiences use them.
- TikTok – Best for younger audiences and consumer reviews for health, beauty, food, and fitness.
- LinkedIn – Best for B2B and professional services like manufacturing, law, finance, and higher ed.
- Instagram – Best for ecommerce and B2C businesses like restaurants, photographers, and retail.
- YouTube – Best for all age groups and brands in travel, fitness, tech, and education.
- Facebook – Best for home and local services such as roofing, senior care, and automotive.
- X (Twitter) – Best for tech start-ups, marketing, business professionals, and journalism.
- Pinterest – Best for brands targeting female shoppers, like retail, beauty, and food and beverage.
5 Steps to Follow to Analyze Your Competitor’s Social Media Strategy
Per some great suggestions from Moz, listed below are a few steps to take when conducting your social media competitor analysis:
Narrow down your brand goals and metrics
Before analyzing any competitors, it’s important for your brand to figure out your brand goals. Are you looking for more followers? More reposts? More replies? More sales from organic social?
Pinpointing what your goals are will help you create your strategy and test out different tactics to achieve them.
Identify brand competitors
There are a variety of ways to identify competitors online. Whether it be on a local scale by looking on Google Maps, or a national scale by seeing who ranks well on Google, or even asking AI to do it based on your product or service offering. Gather your list, then, based on what platforms your users are most likely to be using, search the brand and see if they are active.
Pro-tip: SparkToro’s audience research tools can be super helpful as you begin this process!
Collect and analyze data
Based on your goals, start analyzing their accounts to measure various metrics. Things such as their average like count, comments, and how often they post. Don’t forget to also create a baseline for your own brand so you can compare later on the success of whatever strategy you implement.
Implement a social media strategy
Try putting together a SWOT analysis defining your brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to help make business decisions. Then, research online what strategy you should try to meet your goal. This is also a great time to test out what different AI platforms suggest!
Keep tabs on account progress
Even after conducting competitor analysis, the job is not done. It’s important to keep tabs on your own brand profile along with your competitors so you can stay up to date on current social media trends.
Alongside following the steps listed above, there are also specific social media tools that help identify efficient competitor analysis on social platforms. Some that Moz suggested include:
These platforms build brand growth through social media management tools and identify what competitors are doing to target potential customers, which in turn will benefit your business.
Why Care About Social Media Anyways?
While there are many industries that may dismiss social media, believing their audience may not be on it, these statistics can be eye-opening about the truth of social media marketing!
- By 2027, it is projected that 6 billion people will be using social media (Statista)
- 86% of marketers think that creating an online community creates a successful social media strategy (HubSpot)
- Ecommerce brands that are active on social typically see over 30% more online sales (Saleslion)
- Over 50% of online shoppers turn to social media to research specific products and services (GWI)
- Nearly 50% of Millennials and Gen Z have purchased products via social media in the past 3 months (HubSpot)
- The average user on social media uses 6.7 different apps each month (DataReportal)
- ¼ of shoppers prefer to search for a brand on social media instead of using search engines (HubSpot)
Stay Up to Date on Recent News
Be sure to follow us on social media @sixthcitymtk and sign up for our email newsletter for all things digital marketing!
This post was originally published in November 2022 and has been updated to reflect new information.
