Skip to main content

5 Convincing Reasons To Use Social Media To Spy On Your Competition

“Know your audience,” say the experts, “It’s key to any social media marketing success!”

I can get behind that.

But what if you want more than just success in your industry?  What if you want to be the best in your industry?

You’re going to need a plan for domination. It’s time to start spying on your competition by keeping tabs on their social media profiles.

This is an awesome way to gather valuable competition intelligence – the stuff you can use to improve your social media presence and overall marketing strategy.

Need more reasons? We’ve got 5:

1. You deserve an ego boost

Think your industry is cramped with social media hot shots? Think again:

“The reality is that most of your competitors aren’t likely doing a very good job with social media (most companies aren’t), which gives you the chance to stand out,” says Forbes contributor Stephanie Chandler.

But you won’t know where the gaps in your industry are until you look for them.

Search for the competition across social media platforms to determine exactly what you’re dealing with. You might be surprised to discover that you run the game!

2. It beats trash talking

Sure, go post a negative Yelp review about your top competitor, or hurl a string of insults across their Twitter page.   Feel better now?

Probably not, I’ll bet.  And your customers won’t be impressed when they find out, either.  Oh yes. There’s nowhere to hide online.

As the experts at Conduit remind us, “in the viral world of social media, [talking trash] can come back to bite you in a bad way.”

Take the high road and gain an edge on your competition by gathering totally public, totally guilt-free intelligence from their social media profiles.

You can’t improve your social media strategy by posting nasty comments to your competitor’s Facebook page.  Spying is much, much more sustainable.

3. Their customers need you

Customer service has shifted to social media in a big way . Now more than ever, social users connect with companies on Twitter and Facebook to offer feedback and ask questions.

For one reason or another, your competitors might be ignoring these communications. That’s where you come in.

Monitor your competitors’ social profiles, and note when a question or comment goes neglected. If you can provide a solution, it’s fair game.

At this point, winning the customer is all about the approach.

As social media expert Kristi Hines suggests, instead of spamming users with blatant sales pitches, “simply offering a helpful suggestion about how to choose the right product and then leaving it up to them to make the decision is a lot more likely to pay off.”

4. It’s easy to be a Spy

With social media, you don’t need James-Bond-style espionage to crack the competition’s marketing strategies.  In the time it takes to perform a dozen Google searches and build an Excel spreadsheet, you’ll have everything you need to get started.

Keeping a record of each competitor’s presence across social platforms will help you determine trends in effectiveness and popularity.  If you monitor how often each competitor makes updates, you’ll have a strong idea of who to pay attention to over the long-term.

To keep things organized and efficient on Twitter, create a private Twitter list and add your competitor’s profiles to that list. This is only visible to you. Stealthy!

5. Free learning opportunities rule

No matter how much or little social media content abounds amongst your competitors online, you are sure to learn something about what your company can do to improve and stand out from the rest.  And it won’t cost you a dime.

Valuable insights from competitors include:

  • Number of followers per profile
  • Number of “Likes” per Facebook post (type, date, time)
  • Number of retweets per tweet (type, date, time)
  • Number of updates per week
  • Tone, style, and content shares
  • Frequency of communication with other users

These can all help you strategize where and how your company fits in the field online.  You can also learn from your competitor’s mistakes – the Facebook posts that flop versus the posts people love, for instance – and hone your strategy to accommodate what appeals to your audience.

With competitive intelligence in your marketing arsenal, you’re prepared to amp up your presence and increase traffic back to your website.

Success is sweet, and it’s even sweeter when you feel like James Bond.

See Also

A Business Blog Checklist for Higher Site Traffic

 

1 comment

9

  1. AdSpy

    July 25, 2018

    Hey Sarah,

    We found your blog about 5 convincing reasons to use social media to spy on your competition and were wondering if you'd be open to mentioning about our product AdSpy.com as a new and effective social media ad spy tool that business and marketers can take advantage of here in your blog as a update this 2018?

    We can provide free trial for your and your users or any suggestions on how we can help each other out.

    Here are some of its features:
    - 32 million ads and growing every day
    - Mobile ads
    - 7 million advertisers tracked daily since 2016
    - 180 countries
    - 80 different languages
    - Search by ad text, URL, landing page URLs, comments, affiliate networks
    - Filter by user age, gender, daily and total likes
    - Set when the ads was created or seen by users
    - Search by technologies used, for example search all ads which use Shopify on its landing pages
    - Affiliate offer scanning in all URLs including landing pages and redirects. Comprehensive system using residential IPs and real browsers to avoid cloakers

    Please let us know your thoughts on this. Thank you!

Related Posts

Kelowna SEO Company | Navigator Multimedia

The Navigator Multimedia team having a meeting in the office boardroom, ready to help our clients succeed with graphic design, web development, online marketing, and general digital marketing support..

30 Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses Learned from 30 Years in Digital Marketing

Here are 30 effective marketing strategies and marketing initiatives for small businesses in 2023-24.

Four people sit and stand around two laptops as they study SEO and digital marketing for their online business.

The Importance of SEO & Content Marketing in Digital Marketing (2023 Guide)

Own a business, work in sales, or manage a marketing department? This article explains the importance of SEO (search engine...

A pair of hands types an a Mac laptop computer while examining a Google Analytics report to prepare for the switch from Universal Analytics to GA4.

Google Analytics Is Updating from Universal Analytics To GA4

Here’s Navigator Multimedia’s Guide To Help You With The Switch Google Analytics is one of the most important tools for online marketing and analyzing website performance. As the way we navigate the web changes, Google Analytics needs to adapt accordingly....