4 takeaways from our article:

1. Why should you take a deeper look at how your competition is doing?
2. How do you track your competitors on social media?
3. What should you measure and compare?
4. How do you make the most of your competitors’ mistakes?

Analyzing your own performance on social media is vital for optimization and delivering the best possible results. But while you’re busy collecting data on your marketing efforts, your competitors might be looking at that very same data. X-raying your statistics helps them make better decisions and understand your audience as well as theirs. So why wouldn’t you do that in return?

What is competitor tracking?

Competitor tracking is a crucial aspect of consumer research that focuses on measuring the awareness and perception of your competitors’ brands. By using a competitor analysis tool, you can evaluate and monitor various aspects of competitors’ businesses, such as engagement rates, social media performance, and marketing strategies. By keeping a close eye on your rivals, you can strategically plan your marketing efforts and maximize your chances of success. Competitor tracking allows you to compare consumer opinions about your brand and those of your competitors, providing valuable insights into their strengths and weaknesses.

By tracking your competitors, you can identify market gaps that your business can exploit, develop a more competitive marketing strategy, and stay one step ahead in the game. This process not only helps in understanding what your competitors are doing right but also sheds light on areas where they might be falling short. Armed with this knowledge, you can fine-tune your marketing strategy to better meet the needs of your target market and achieve your business goals.

Why should you start competitor analysis?

1. Inspiration. Find some of your competitors’ profiles on social media and analyze their communication to get inspired with your content. We don’t recommend copy-pasting anything though. You’ll end up doing more harm than good.
2. Their digital footprints can reveal what they’re planning, what they’re in the middle of doing, or which campaigns were successful.
3. The less you know, the easier you sleep? That doesn’t apply to marketing. You should know as much as possible to stay one step ahead of the competition. Track competitors to avoid unpleasant surprises. Creating a competitive analysis report can help you stay one step ahead of the competition by providing a comprehensive overview of your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
4. Your competitors don’t really sleep, so if you don’t start tracking now, you might wake up with tears in your eyes (as well as poor campaign results from and an empty marketing budget).
5. Bearing in mind their campaigns and results, you can see what is better to avoid in the industry, what works well, and what could be improved. You’ll learn from their mistakes without spending your own energy, money, and time on something that might not even work. It’s enough to track competitors.
6. It keeps this competitive business spinning, as well as offers even better communication and understanding. Win-win-win.

Essential aspects to cover in market research

Market research is a cornerstone of effective competitor analysis, providing the insights needed to make informed decisions and stay ahead of the competition. When conducting market research, there are several essential aspects to cover:

• Identifying your target market: Understanding who your ideal customers are is crucial. This involves analyzing their needs, preferences, and behaviors. By knowing your target market inside out, you can tailor your marketing efforts to better meet their expectations.
• Analyzing your competitors: Researching both direct and indirect competitors is vital. This includes assessing their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their marketing strategies. By understanding what your competitors are doing right and where they are falling short, you can find opportunities to differentiate your brand.
• Gathering customer feedback: Collecting data from your customers helps you understand their satisfaction levels, preferences, and pain points. This feedback is invaluable for refining your products, services, and marketing strategies.
• Analyzing market trends: Staying up-to-date with the latest market trends is essential. This includes changes in consumer behavior, technological advancements, and regulatory changes. By keeping an eye on these trends, you can anticipate shifts in the market and adapt your strategies accordingly.
• Conducting primary and secondary research: Use a combination of primary research methods, such as surveys and focus groups, and secondary research methods, such as industry reports and academic studies, to gather comprehensive data. This dual approach ensures you have a well-rounded understanding of the market.

By covering these essential aspects, you can conduct thorough market research that informs your competitive analysis and helps you develop a robust marketing strategy.

How do you track competitors on social media using competitor tracking tools?

There are many competitive analysis tools available for tracking competitors on social media, but of course we are here to recommend Sotrender. With our tool, you can:

• Benchmark your competitors on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram. You don’t need to have an admin role to be able to analyze what and how your competition is doing.
• Measure their performance and see what kind of content engages their audiences.
• Get to know their audience better – see how they behave online and which content is their fave.
• Make a comparison group out of your market rivals and compare their performance with intuitive, user-friendly reports you can get familiar with – in PDF or XLS.

Profile overview in Sotrender

Competitor tracking tools are essential for gathering actionable insights about competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. Understanding the search marketing secret formula can enhance your paid advertising campaigns without guesswork.

What metrics should you measure in competitive analysis?

• Reach and reach demographics – Are they reaching the right people? Is it your target group? Or maybe there’s something suspicious in their results?
• Engagement. Even if your competitors reach a lot of people, they may not engage them all, meaning their communication might not be effective. If you track your competitors on a regular basis, you’ll find it out. You can either check their engagement rate, for example, or track the engagement under their posts.
• Response time. This is an essential factor both for your competitors and your brand. By looking at their response time, you can judge if they’re managing their customer service on social media successfully or if they’re struggling.
• Content types. What kind of content do they use and which ones really work for them?
• Most popular posts (top posts). Look at their most successful posts and try to find a few reasons why they got so popular among your target groups. You can get inspired for your own communication.
• Fan growth. Are they growing naturally and at a normal pace, or are there some bumps along the chart (does it imply buying fans, a Page Likes campaign, or just a series of great posts encouraging users to like the page?).
• Fan demographics and age groups. Who are their fans and where do they come from? If your business is all about local activity and you have competition in the area, their fans should be gained locally as well. Having fans from other countries while you work locally can imply some dirty practices.
• Sources of likes. What is the most effective way to gain new likes? Are they coming naturally, or maybe certain types of posts are getting the most attention? Track competitors to find out.
• Negative feedback. How many fans react negatively to a particular brand’s communication? Negative feedback reflects the number of unlikes, hiding posts, or hiding all posts on a page. Unnaturally high growth in any of these might be the result of poor communication or content.

SEO and competitor analysis

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a critical component of digital marketing, and competitor analysis can significantly enhance your SEO efforts. By analyzing your competitors’ SEO strategies, you can uncover valuable insights and opportunities:

• Identify gaps in the market: By examining your competitors’ content, you can identify gaps that you can fill with your own content. This not only helps you attract more traffic but also positions you as a thought leader in your industry.
• Improve your keyword strategy: Analyzing your competitors’ keyword strategies can reveal opportunities to refine your own. By targeting the right keywords, you can improve your search engine rankings and drive more organic traffic to your site.
• Enhance your content marketing: Understanding your competitors’ content marketing efforts allows you to identify areas for improvement in your own strategy. This could involve creating more engaging content, addressing different topics, or using various content formats.
• Optimize your website: By studying your competitors’ website optimization techniques, you can find ways to enhance your own site’s performance. This includes improving site speed, mobile-friendliness, and overall user experience.

Incorporating these insights into your SEO strategy can help you stay competitive and achieve better search engine rankings.

Content marketing and competitor analysis

Content marketing is a vital aspect of digital marketing, and competitor analysis can provide valuable insights to improve your content marketing efforts. By analyzing your competitors’ content marketing strategies, you can:

• Identify content gaps: By examining your competitors’ content, you can identify gaps in the market that you can fill with your own content. This helps you address unmet needs and attract a wider audience.
• Improve your content strategy: Analyzing your competitors’ content strategies can reveal opportunities to enhance your own. This might involve adopting new content formats, exploring different topics, or refining your content calendar.
• Enhance your brand voice: Understanding your competitors’ brand voice can help you refine your own. By developing a unique and consistent brand voice, you can differentiate your brand and build stronger connections with your audience.
• Optimize your content distribution: Studying your competitors’ content distribution strategies can provide insights into the most effective channels and tactics. This can help you reach a larger audience and maximize the impact of your content.

By leveraging these insights, you can develop a more effective content marketing strategy that drives engagement and supports your overall marketing goals.

Can you track competitors’ ad results for a competitive analysis report?

The good news is: yes, you can! Thanks to Sotrender’s extra module, Sotrender Ads, you can get access to some useful and very insightful data. While accessing the exact results of your competitors’ campaigns isn’t possible at all, Benchmarking section in Sotrender Ads gives you an idea of how much they invest in ads, and what campaign goals they aim at. Understanding competitors’ ad results is crucial for developing an effective sales and marketing strategy.

So, basically, Benchmarking enables you to access 4 crucial scores that compare your and your competitors’ results. They are as follows:

• Impressions score,
• Clicks score,
• CPM score,
• CPC score.

You just need to select one of the 25 different categories and one of the three campaign goals available. And this is, more or less, how your results can look.

Comparing ad results in Sotrender Ads

Basically, these results mean that most of the scores are to be improved, except for the CPM score which, in this case, is just great. But, as you can see, the competitors’ results in terms of impressions, clicks, and CPC are better than the results of a brand profile that we analyze.

Now, you can also see the score trend which shows you the exact same results over the time of last few months. You can see on a timeline how clicks, impressions, CPC and CPM score were changing, and make some conclusions about the efficiency of advertising activities.

Analyzing Score trend in Sotrender Ads

Now that you have this data, take a look at spend and campaign goals comparison. Simply put, see monthly ad spend with regard to competitors’ expenditures, and take a closer look at which campaign goals they invest in, and how often.

Checking spend and campaign goals in Sotrender Ads

Such data is super insightful as it can obviously influence some significant changes in your social media strategy and can shape your approach to advertising. See what your competitors are doing, draw conclusions and implement this fresh knowledge into your new, advanced strategy.

Using competitor analysis tools

In today’s fast-paced business environment, competitor analysis tools are indispensable for staying ahead of the competition. These tools offer actionable market research, social listening, SEO analysis, and direct marketing insights, enabling businesses to make informed decisions. By leveraging competitor analysis tools, you can identify your target market, scrutinize your competitors’ sales and marketing strategies, and craft a robust business strategy.

The best competitor analysis tools provide comprehensive comparison capabilities, novel insights, and user-friendly interfaces. These tools can be broadly categorized into market data analysis and digital marketing analysis. Among them, Sotrender stands out by offering in-depth social media analytics and competitor benchmarking, enabling you to uncover actionable insights effortlessly.

Market data analysis tools offer insights into competitors’ online presence, market trends, and consumer behavior. On the other hand, digital marketing analysis tools delve into competitors’ SEO strategies, social media presence, and direct marketing efforts. By utilizing these tools, businesses can develop a holistic marketing strategy that accounts for their competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

In addition to these specialized tools, Google competitor analysis tools can provide a deeper dive into your competitors’ online activities. Google Search can reveal which queries your competitors are ranking for, while Google Trends can highlight the topics and queries they are focusing on. Google Analytics can offer insights into the performance of competitors’ ads, and Google Merchant Center can help compare product pricing and identify best-selling products.

Overall, competitor tracking and analysis are essential for any business aiming to stay ahead of the curve. By using a combination of competitor analysis tools and Google competitor analysis tools, you can gain valuable insights into your competitors’ strategies and develop a competitive marketing strategy that drives business growth and success.

Competitive analysis example

To illustrate how a competitive analysis report can be structured, here’s an example:

• Company overview: Start with an overview of your company, including your mission statement, products or services, and target market. This sets the context for the analysis.
• Competitor analysis: Analyze your direct and indirect competitors, focusing on their strengths and weaknesses, marketing strategies, and market share. This section provides a detailed understanding of the competitive landscape.
• Market analysis: Examine the market trends, including changes in consumer behavior, technological advancements, and regulatory changes. This helps you understand the broader context in which your competitors operate.
• Customer analysis: Analyze your customers, including their needs and preferences, satisfaction levels, and pain points. This section provides insights into how well you are meeting your customers’ needs compared to your competitors.
• Recommendations: Based on the analysis, provide recommendations for improving your marketing strategy. This could include opportunities to enhance your SEO efforts, content marketing strategy, and customer engagement.

By following this structure, you can create a comprehensive competitive analysis report that provides valuable insights and actionable recommendations for your business.

How do you make the most of your competitors’ mistakes?

Their mistakes are your advantages, so you can do a few things to turn their mistakes into your successes:

• If your competitors don’t make any offers, become a trendsetter in this matter (and in any other matter!). Give your followers some added value in the form of e.g. a discount code. It’s easy and effective to measure conversions.
• Encourage users to like your page in your posts so you can gain even more followers.
• Take care of your response time (especially if your competitors don’t do so) so that others will consider your brand to be helpful, professional, and open to their followers.
• Did your competitors have only a few posts that were super popular? Take them as examples and add something similar to your strategy to analyze and optimize afterward.
• Start communicating with your users and fans on social media. Users notice when there is a brand that stands out from the rest. Having helpful and reliable moderators on your Facebook page could improve your relationship with fans. Here’s how you can use Sotrender’s Facebook moderation to do just that.

Understanding both direct and indirect competitors can help you identify opportunities to capitalize on their mistakes.

Tracking your competitors may be fun – unless you’ve been tracked before! In that case, be sure to know how to reply to it and win over your customers (and your competition’ customers) hearts with your strategy.