1. Identify Your Competitors
Research the keywords that you already use for your website/business and research the top 10 results in the search engine. Check their websites for active social media accounts.Â
Also, use the search engines on the social media platforms that you are targeting with the same keywords.
Pick the top 5 with active social media accounts.
2. Gather Data On Your Competitors
Start collecting data on these top 5 accounts
- What social networks are they on?
- How large is their following and how fast is it growing?
- Who are their top followers
- How often do they post?
- What is their engagement rate?
- What is their social share of voice?
- What hashtags do they use most often?
- How many hashtags do they use?
- What percentage of their posts is promotional?
3. Collect Intel From Your Competitor’s Websites
Some companies will use content marketing as part of their marketing strategy. Research their blogs, how often they are posting and what keywords they are targeting.
4. Perform A SWOT Analysis
Combine all the data altogether in a spreadsheet (template) and perform a SWOT analysis. Find the internal factors of strength and weaknesses in your social media strategy against your competitors. Also, identify the external factors of opportunities and threats against your competitors.
5. Apply To Social Media Monitoring
Build your competitor analysis into your social media monitoring strategy, it best to perform this annually or bi-annually. This will help identify your performance against your competitors and create benchmarks. It would identify new trends in your industry.
Bonus: Always Keep Learning.
Always keep researching and learning about social media as platforms change rapidly.
We wish you the best of luck in your small business.We hope that this article was usefull and if you need any help please don’t hesitate to contact us here.