If you do a proper social media competitor analysis, you can understand why your competition is getting more attention than you. Then, you can use that information to your advantage to create better content, attract more leads, and get more engagement.<\/a><\/p>\n So, who\u2019s ready to do some competitor investigation?<\/p>\n First, you have to know who you\u2019re competing against. Naturally, you\u2019ll want to focus mainly on your competitors who are using social media to attract leads or grow brand authority.<\/p>\n Pick 3-5<\/strong> competitors in your niche to start out with. If your industry is dominated by social media marketing and you have hundreds of competitors, don\u2019t worry. Just pick your main rivals for now so that your initial analysis doesn\u2019t take hours upon hours. You can always go back and add more data later.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to note which social media platforms your competitors are using and which social media channels they seem to be having success with. At the same time, you don\u2019t want to spend hours pouring over their Pinterest data if you have no plans to start marketing on Pinterest anytime soon.<\/p>\n Decide on a few channels that you and your competitors have in common and focus your analysis on those. If you find that you and your competitors don\u2019t have any social media channels in common, then it\u2019s worthwhile to make sure you\u2019re using social media sites that are good for your business<\/a>.<\/p>\n Be sure to check for your competition on sites outside of Facebook, Instagram<\/a>, LinkedIn<\/a>, and Twitter. Extend your search into all varieties of social media sites like Reddit, Snapchat, and YouTube.<\/p>\n You could spend hours manually searching for and organizing competitor data, or you could just use a social media competitor analysis tool.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re looking to dive deep into your competition\u2019s social media analytics, then it\u2019s a good idea to look into using a social media competitor analysis tool. Similar to SEO competitor analysis tools<\/a>, a social media competitive analysis tool will help you uncover data and trends that would be way too time-consuming or difficult to do manually.<\/p>\n Here are two basic social media competitor analysis tools you can use to get started.<\/p>\n For those looking for a more comprehensive tool, Rival<\/a> offers clear-cut insights across a variety of social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.<\/p>\n Rival also offers two great free social media competitive analysis tools for those looking for a cost-effective option:<\/p>\n If using a tool isn\u2019t up your alley, you can grab some simple analytics just by browsing your competitors\u2019 pages. Record basic metrics like followers, average likes, average comments, and average posts per day so you at least have some basic metrics to start out with.<\/p>\n Now that you know which competitors to focus on and have a high-level overview of their key metrics, it\u2019s time to dig into the details.<\/p>\n Browse through each of their social media channels<\/a> and see what types of content they\u2019re producing and which types seem to get the most engagement. Here are some types of content you\u2019ll want to look out for:<\/p>\n The secret sauce is to understand why<\/strong> certain posts are effective.<\/p>\n Is their content funny? Straight to the point? Full of clickbait? Strikes an emotional chord? It\u2019s up to you to decide \u201cwhy\u201d behind their success. While that might seem like a daunting task, don\u2019t worry! Social media is the perfect place to test out different messages, images, branding initiatives and more. If one of your posts doesn\u2019t get a good response, you can always try something new the next day. You’ll notice that most content on platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest are filled with montages of beautiful pictures and infographics. If you don’t have a graphic designer on staff, don’t worry! You can easily create your own infographics with Venngage<\/a>.<\/p>\n It can be tempting to get caught up in metrics like engagement rates, follower growth, and posts per day. While KPIs are definitely important, what your audience likes is important too. Numbers only tell one half of the story. To get a better idea of what people actually like and are interacting with, take some time to read through the comments of your competitors\u2019 comment sections. Note if their comments are positive, negative, and how (if at all) the company responds to comments. You can learn a lot just by listening to the audience.<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible to take this one step further and do some research into who else their audience is following and engaging with. This is really simple to do on Instagram, just click on a follower and look at their \u201cFollowing\u201d list.<\/p>\n Now that you\u2019re overloaded with information about your competitors you might be thinking, \u201cWhere do I go from here?\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not enough to just look at some numbers and ideas and call it a day. You have to analyze the data and figure out specific action steps.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve got just the thing to help!<\/p>\n A SWOT<\/strong> (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis can help you summarize all of the information you collected in your analysis. To make it even more effective, you can pair your SWOT analysis with action steps so you know exactly what you should be doing to improve your social media marketing.<\/p>\n It\u2019s pretty straightforward, here\u2019s a basic hypothetical example:<\/p>\n Don\u2019t let all of your hard work go unnoticed! If you don\u2019t have a social media marketing tracking system in place, make sure you decide on your most important KPIs and review them every month. If you\u2019re not ready to invest in social media analytics software, a simple spreadsheet will suffice.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll also want to update your action steps within your SWOT analysis as you complete them and learn more about your audience.<\/p>\n Cracking the code to social media growth can be frustrating for both experienced marketers and new entrepreneurs, but there are ways to make it a lot easier. Completing a social media competitive analysis and implementing your findings can help you boost your overall social media marketing strategy.<\/p>\n Make a copy of this google sheets document<\/a> to easily share, edit and print.<\/p>\n1. Make a List of Your Top Competitors <\/strong><\/h2>\n
2. Pick Your Most Important Social Media Channels <\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.canirank.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/righttool.jpg\")
<\/h2>\n3. Gather Intel With the Right Tools <\/strong><\/h2>\n
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4. Analyze Your Competition\u2019s Content <\/strong><\/h2>\n
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.canirank.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/audience.jpg\")
<\/p>\n5. Don\u2019t Forget About Your Audience! <\/strong><\/h2>\n
6. Perform a Social Media SWOT Analysis with Action Steps<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n\n
\n Strengths<\/th>\n Weaknesses<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n \n Engaged followers on Instagram, positive feedback from Instagram followers, great images on Instagram
\nAction Steps<\/b> \u2192 Continue producing great imagery and interacting with Instagram followers.<\/td>\nNot able to generate engagement on Twitter, limited time to respond to messages and comments on Instagram
\nAction Steps<\/b> \u2192 Use posting strategy from Competitor A to attempt to increase Twitter engagement, hire a social media manager to respond to Instagram messages.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\n Opportunities<\/th>\n Threats<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n \n Few competitors are using Reddit so there\u2019s an opportunity to expand.
\nAction Steps<\/b> \u2192 Start a subreddit and build up Reddit karma.<\/td>\nNegative reviews on Facebook and Google
\nAction Steps<\/b> \u2192 Respond politely to negative reviews, encourage current happy customers to leave positive reviews on Facebook, Google, and Yelp.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n7. Track Your Results <\/strong><\/h2>\n
Try it Yourself!<\/h2>\n