Mastering the Art of Competitor Analysis on Social Media

Byter, Digital Marketing Agency, Work With Us, Tailored Marketing Packages

November 5, 2024

Social Media Competitors: Conducting a Comprehensive Analysis

In today’s digital landscape, understanding social media competitors is crucial for crafting a strong and successful business strategy. To make informed decisions and stay competitive, companies benefit significantly from analysing their rivals’ social media activities. Social media competitor analysis involves evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of competitors in order to uncover opportunities and, consequently, strengthen one’s own approach.

A well-executed competitor analysis can help you:

Measure your performance against the industry
Spot growth opportunities and market gaps
Gain insights into your audience’s preferences
Identify new trends and emerging conversations

Let’s dive into six key steps to carry out an insightful and effective social media competitor analysis.

1. Identify Your Main Competitors

To begin, develop a list of direct competitors whose offerings closely align with your own. While indirect competitors (those who serve a similar audience with different products) can also be insightful, focusing on direct rivals ensures your findings are highly relevant.

Direct competitors provide the clearest benchmarks, enabling you to gather actionable insights on content style, audience engagement, and platform selection. Additionally, create a list of about five competitors in your industry to keep your analysis focused and manageable.

Types of Competitors to Consider

Competitors often fall into categories based on audience size and growth:

Emerging Brands: These are new businesses with strong growth potential that, in many cases, are still in the early stages of building their audience.
Market Leaders: These are established companies that have large, actively engaged followings.
Niche Brands: These are brands with smaller, yet dedicated audiences, focusing on specialised content.
Established Players: Long-standing brands with large audiences, though they may experience slower growth.

By examining competitors from these categories, you can gain a more holistic view of the social media landscape, which, consequently, will help better inform your strategies.

2. Analyse Audience Demographics and Platform Usage

Understanding your competitors’ audiences is crucial to reaching untapped segments. Therefore, by examining who engages with their content, you can refine your own targeting approach. Additionally, pay attention to:

Demographics: Age, gender, location, etc.
Socioeconomics: Income levels, education, and occupation types
Interests and Psychographics: Hobbies, values, and lifestyle preferences
Behavioural Patterns: Device usage, common interactions, and platform preferences

By gaining insight into these characteristics, you can adapt your messaging and choose platforms that resonate with similar audiences. For instance, if a competitor’s audience favours video-based platforms, you might consider incorporating more video content into your own strategy.

Determining Platform Preferences

Firstly, observe which platforms your competitors use most often and how their audiences engage with them. You may discover that certain age groups prefer specific social networks or content formats. Additionally, if your competitors have higher engagement rates on platforms you’re not yet using, this could be a valuable area for expansion.

3. Benchmark Industry Standards and Engagement Levels: Social Media Competitors

Benchmarking allows you to evaluate your position within the industry, providing context for your social media metrics. Analysing industry standards can also reveal areas where you excel or where improvements are needed.

Start by assessing the overall social media traffic your competitors generate. Determine the types of content that receive the highest engagement (likes, shares, comments) and note if their content differs by platform. Consider factors such as:

Engagement Metrics: How does your content’s engagement compare to industry averages?
Traffic Sources: Which social platforms drive the most traffic to competitors’ websites?
Content Resonance: Are certain content themes consistently well-received?

Comparing these metrics can show you where to focus and help you set realistic performance goals. Additionally, social listening tools can provide insight into brand sentiment, revealing public perception of your competitors compared to your own brand.

4. Examine Competitors’ Content Strategies and Posting Patterns

Now it’s time to dive into the specifics of your competitors’ content. Analyse what they post, when they post, and how frequently. Note the formats they use, such as videos, images, or blog posts, and how each format performs.

Key Aspects to Analyse in Content Strategy

Content Types: Are their posts informative, entertaining, or promotional?
Visuals and Media: Do they rely on product images, lifestyle shots, or user-generated content?
Topics and Themes: Identify common topics or seasonal trends they cover.
Engagement Tactics: Look for elements like calls to action (CTAs), hashtags, and interactive posts.

Identifying which types of posts drive engagement allows you to create more tailored content that resonates with your target audience. For example, if a competitor’s audience responds well to aspirational content, you may choose to include more inspirational posts in your strategy.

Posting Frequency and Timing

Monitor how often your competitors post and the timeframes that generate the most interaction. In addition, this insight can help optimise your posting schedule, ensuring your content reaches audiences at the most impactful times.

5. Conduct a SWOT Analysis

To summarise your findings, carry out a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis. This analysis not only provides a comprehensive view of how you compare to social media competitors but also highlights areas for improvement.

Conducting a SWOT Analysis for Social Media

Strengths: Identify where your brand outperforms competitors. Are you gaining more engagement, driving more traffic, or excelling in a unique content format?
Weaknesses: Recognise areas where your social media efforts fall short. Perhaps your competitor’s visual content is more polished, or they have a more interactive approach with their audience.
Opportunities: Spot potential for growth. If competitors focus heavily on one platform, you could benefit from diversifying or targeting under-served demographics.
Threats: Assess any external factors that may impact your strategy. Are competitors leveraging paid ads aggressively, or are they running seasonal campaigns that draw audience attention?

A SWOT analysis helps clarify how your social media presence stacks up and, as a result, highlights where to direct resources for maximum impact.

6. Refine and Implement Your Social Media Strategy

With a complete understanding of your competitive landscape, it’s now time to refine your social strategy. Consequently, this step ensures you apply insights from your competitor analysis effectively.

Steps to Improve Your Social Media Strategy

Incorporate successful tactics by implementing some of the strategies that work well for your competitors. For instance, if video content drives significant engagement for them, consider incorporating short-form videos or live sessions into your own strategy.
Explore new platforms by considering expansion into areas where your competitors are performing well but you haven’t explored yet. This could help you tap into new audiences and increase your visibility.
Address Content Gaps: Identify any topics or content types that neither you nor your competitors have addressed and capitalise on these opportunities.

By continuously adapting based on competitor insights, you can stay responsive to audience needs and, therefore, maintain a competitive edge.

Essential Tools for Social Media Competitor Analysis

To streamline your competitor analysis, several tools can provide valuable data on performance, engagement, and audience insights. Consequently, here are a few worth exploring:

Agorapulse: This platform enables users to schedule posts, track engagement, and access competitor activity insights, allowing brands to monitor their performance alongside industry rivals.
Quintly: This tool offers extensive social media analytics, enabling comparisons of your social performance against competitors and tracking engagement across multiple platforms.
Vaizle: Vaizle’s benchmarking features allow you to compare social performance metrics with competitors, offering insights on engagement and content trends.
Iconosquare: Focused on Instagram and Facebook, Iconosquare offers analytics on competitor activity, audience engagement, and detailed social metrics for brands looking to enhance their content strategy.

Social Media Competitors: Making the Most of Competitor Insights

All in all, by regularly conducting social media competitor analysis, brands can stay informed about the latest trends, engage audiences more effectively, and continually refine their strategy. Moreover, with a commitment to ongoing assessment, companies can turn competitor insights into actionable strategies that enhance their own social presence.

This competitor analysis framework not only provides benchmarks but offers a roadmap for future growth in the social media landscape. By understanding and applying insights from industry rivals, brands can evolve to meet changing demands and achieve long-term social media success.