There are countless ways to promote your brand online, but social media stands above the rest as one of your best options. When 58.4% of the world’s population now uses social media, it’s the perfect way to get exposure for your company worldwide.
The problem is creating a social media strategy that works. That’s where looking at how your competition uses social media comes into play.
However, a social media competitive analysis is easier said than done. Keep reading to learn how to handle a competitive analysis for social media.
Find Your Competitors
The first step to a comprehensive social media competitive analysis report is figuring out your main competitors. Search on Google for your main keywords to get a list of websites in your industry.
Once you arrive at these websites, look for their social media links. Focus on the social media accounts that are regularly used in your industry.
Don’t stop at only a couple of competitors, either. It will take too long to analyze dozens of sites, but you can learn much more with a good number of websites to monitor.
Start Collecting Data
Once you collect your competitors’ social media accounts, it’s time to collect data. Here are some data points that are worth considering:
- Following count
- Engagement rate
- Type of content
- Hashtag usage
- Post frequency
- Type of images
- Time of posts
This information will tell you what social media content works well on social media in your industry. You can use this data to develop your own posts that get great engagement.
It’s also possible to run ads on social media, so look at tools that tell you what ads your competitors run on social media accounts. If you see ads that run for a long time, it’s a sign that it produces excellent results.
Perform a SWOT Analysis
The final step in competitive analysis in social media is to analyze your data. You can do this with a SWOT analysis. Here’s how to go through the process.
Strengths
The strength portion of social media analysis is where you determine your competitor’s strengths. What parts of their strategy work best and give them an edge?
Weaknesses
Even a great social media presence isn’t foolproof. To maximize your results, you’ll need to know which parts of social media your competitors are poor at.
Opportunity
Now that you know your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, you can focus on where you have opportunities. What weaknesses do your competitors have that you can do better with your social media presence?
Threats
A threat on social media is something that can negatively impact your business. Are your competitors doing anything that can pull customers away from your business and to theirs? A great social media listening process can help you find threats and act on them before they become issues.
Check a few social listening examples to see how it’s done.
Do Things Right During Your Social Media Competitive Analysis
With so much to figure out when getting started on social media, it’s hard to get started from scratch. Luckily, you probably have competitors that have already done a lot of the work and know what drives results. Perform a social media competitive analysis to figure out what your competitors are doing and start optimizing your social media campaigns.
Do you want to read more social media tips that will help you grow your business? Learn more information by heading back to the blog.
