It’s no secret you need to have a solid social strategy in place to effectively reach today’s hyper-connected consumers in a constantly evolving marketplace. Companies spend countless hours (and tens of billions of dollars) every year trying to perfect the formula for creating social media content that captures the attention of these savvy shoppers and drives them towards a purchasing decision. What if you could save time and money and create more impactful campaigns? With the right competitive intelligence tools, you can!

Identify the competition

Before you do anything, you need to know who you’re up against. This may seem obvious and you probably already have a list of competitors you can name off the top of your head, but don’t forget about the newcomers. Today’s digital landscape, and social media in particular, has made it easier than ever to launch new products and services. It’s particularly important for companies with more traditional business models to stay relevant as the market evolves. Bottom line: keep an eye on the competitors you know and an eye out for new ones entering your space.

Read more about which competitors you should be tracking.

Let them do some of the work

Your competition has already spent time and money testing campaigns, why not save yourself some of the hassle and build upon their efforts? Using tools to measure impact and engagement of competitive content (and benchmarking your own performance against it) you can fine-tune your approach to creating compelling content. (Hint: Kompyte’s Inbound Marketing solution is great for this!) Be aware of things like how often they are posting, how many followers they have, but most importantly, how engaged their communities are. It’s also helpful to see what channels they are having the most success with. You can take some cues from what is resonating (or falling flat) and capitalize on that.

Set yourself apart

Knowing what works for the competition DOES NOT mean copying them! Aside from the obvious plagiarism concerns, putting out carbon-copy content is just going to get you lost in the shuffle and dilute your brand. Use what you know about their most engaging content and put your own unique spin on it. The idea is not to replicate, but to innovate. This is an excellent opportunity to differentiate your brand and gain a competitive advantage. The time you’ve saved by avoiding full-scale market research will allow you to do what it is you do best: create fresh, engaging content that converts.

Timing is everything

Monitoring your competitors’ social media activity and performance provides insights on not only what content is most engaging, but also when the best time is to reach your target market. Using historical data, determine when your community (and those you’re looking to lure away from the competition) is most likely to engage with your posts and make sure you are actively interacting with them at those times.

Another note on time: staying aware of your competition’s activity online and off allows you to be timely and agile when positioning your own brand, particularly if you encounter the need to objection handle while engaging with your community.

Make it a habit

Like most competitive analyses, a social media analysis is most effective when used as an ongoing component of your social strategy. Social media, and the broader digital space, is dynamic and sometimes volatile. it’s important to stay in touch with what is resonating with your ideal consumer. Be consistent about gathering and monitoring the performance of your competitors and identifying potential new entrants to the market. An all-in-one platform, like Kompyte, makes it easy for you to automate this reporting so you never miss a thing.