Just like how you shouldn’t stalk your ex on Facebook, you probably shouldn’t stalk your competitors on social media. But, sometimes you just gotta check in to make sure that your competitors (and your ex) aren’t doing anything way cooler than you.
Today’s Read has the scoop on how to do an in-depth competitive social media analysis. This is more than just creeping, though. Once you’re done with this, you’ll know how to improve your own social media strategy.
Before you go any further, download the competitive analysis template from CoSchedule (don’t worry—it’s ungated).
- Step 1: Build your toolbox. You’ve gotta have the right tools in place to help with this analysis. Tools like Mention, FanPage Karma, Rival IQ, and platform-specific analytics will help.
- Step 2: Choose your top 5 competitors. You should base this off of competitors that have a similar audience size as you, offer the same services, and are generally the same size company.
- Step 3: Set Competitive Analysis Goals. What are you actually hoping to accomplish with this analysis? Are you trying to find gaps your competitors are leaving open that you can fill? Or do you want to see what kind of content their audience is responding to?
- Step 4: Break down their content strategy. In the “Content Strategy” tab on the template, you’re going to fill out a number of things. You’re going to have to analyze the post type, media type, voice, and audience engagement (1-5 scale).
- Step 5: Track follower growth.
There are a few more things we couldn’t fit in here, you’ll have to check this one out for yourself.
