The modern marketers are so engrossed in their own marketing plans, sales, technological advancements, social media metrics, so on and so forth that they forget the main and crucial thing, Competitors. Knowing what your competitors are upto is as important as your own work. But you are not a hacker to just sneak into their systems and go around their work. One simple way to track your competitors’ activities is Social Media.
Here are few tips to track down your competition and know what they are upto…
List out your competitors: First recognize who your competitors are. Do not over or under estimate yourself. Aiming high is important but being realistic is more important. List out companies that stand out to be your real competitors but just not substantial. See where they stand in terms of ROI in your industry.
Track keywords: There are like a hundreds of tools which can help you in tracking the keywords what your competitors have been using. Track them down through their keywords to understand the services they are narrowing down on. You need to focus on their website activity, blogs, social media and other channels.
Check out on social media sites they are active: There are many social media sites other than the most infamous Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Depending on your industry, there might be niche social media networks. You need to match those social media channels and your audience and see if your audience have a presence on those social media networks. If they do, you better start planning your social media activities right away on those social media networks.
Check out on their social media activities: Nothing can beat the human brain. Have social media analysts to track the social media activities of your competitors. You can also need to track
1. Number of fans and followers
2. Engagement rates
3. The type of content being posted
4. Who is talking about the brand
Frequently checking out their facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and other major social media channels in your industry, can give you atleast a peripheral view of their marketing plans.
Remember that competitors are from your own industry doing or selling whatever you‘ve been. Keeping a check on their social media activities, can give you a lot of ways to improve yourself. Take inspiration but do not carbon copy. However, if you are just tracking getting metrics and doing nothing with it will not do you any good. So check out those areas where your competitors are lagging behind. Make your presence evident in that social space and engage audience with great visual content. Do not criticize your competitors in front of your audience, no one likes negative comments. The goal is to outdo your competitors by tracking their behaviour not to get into fights.
