Conventional wisdom says that we should learn from the mistakes of others. But in eCommerce, this also means learning from our competitors’ mistakes, as well as their successes. And this is where competitive analysis comes into play.
Observing your rivals is an important but quite laborious job. Let’s do it James Bond style: no boring manual routine, yes to smart tools.
What is competitive analysis?
Competitor analysis is a research process that reveals who your competitors are and how they are positioning and promoting their products on the Internet. You can analyze websites, social networks, blogs and email campaigns. By comparing your online presence with that of your competitors, you will find the best ways to leave them behind in the rankings.
If you promote your brand or service through content marketing and social media, analyzing means comparing metrics, listening to content, comparing brands’ channels to each other, and checking their updates.
Does it sound like something only big brands do? Well not anymore. 71% of small businesses actively use social media to build customer relationships, and more than half of them post every day. 52% of online brand discoveries occur on social media feeds.
If what you are looking for is to increase the presence of your brand on social networks, we recommend our Guide to have more followers on social networks.
So, even if you are the only employee in your company, you most likely have direct competitors in your environment. It makes sense to take a look at what they do on the Internet and do it better. It is not necessary to hire a professional. You can leave this task in the hands of the algorithms. Social media tools focused on advanced competitor analysis will carry out the entire process for you and provide you with detailed reports.
Why is it necessary to observe your competition?
It is an inspiring process that can be very useful, especially when you are running out of ideas to expand your presence on the Internet, plus the advantage of not having to spend a fortune. Your competitors are applying their own marketing tricks. They won’t necessarily reveal statistics, but the results of your social media campaigns can be tracked and measured.
Analyze your competitors’ strategies to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Take a closer look at your niche. Better understand the needs and expectations of your potential clients. This in-depth exploration will help you improve your own performance and generate more leads.
You don’t have to imitate each and every step of your competitors. Observe intelligently. Discover the latest trends in your sector to resolve opportunity areas in your own strategy. Monitoring your competition can help you make your brand stand out.
Observing your competitors will provide you with the answers to these and other related questions:
- What do your competitors do to attract attention?
- How often should you post or send emails?
- What do your potential customers respond to?
- How far can you go in terms of experimentation with media and types of content?
- How does your target audience interact with similar brands?
- What are the best types of ads for the market segment you are targeting?
- What kind of reviews do customers leave about similar products and services?
- How can your brand increase user engagement?
- What are the gaps in your competitors’ performance on social media?
Just imagine how many months it will take you and how much it will cost you to answer these questions on your own.
More than 60% of American adults like to receive weekly promotional emails from companies they trust. This means you can improve and update your content strategy every week using data collected from competitor research tools.
Mobile app usage by category
On social media, everything happens at breakneck speed, so adapting and implementing changes here should take even less time. On average, users spend 144 minutes a day on social media, so starting tomorrow, you can create and deliver the experience your customers expect. Perform competitive analysis of Facebook and Instagram regularly and you can stand out, despite the aggressive ads and capricious algorithms of others.
How do you know who your competition is?
There are many ways to find out who you compete with. The most obvious and least fruitful method is a simple Google keyword search. The search engine will show you some of your direct competitors in the “People also search” box. But let’s go further.
SpyFu and SEMrush help you accomplish this task more completely and quickly. These tools work in a very similar way: choose one, type in your website or specific keywords, and wait. You will get a complete list of websites that offer services or products similar to yours.
But it is only an initial step. Below, we’ll examine the best smart tools to conduct in-depth research and stay on top of your competition’s digital strategy and marketing performance.
Behind every great social media profile, there is smart planning, tons of research, and top-notch content. Take a look and find out what your competitors are doing to achieve this. Also, watch out for red flags like fake followers, lack of engagement, and low user-generated content.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is an all-in-one platform. Track the most popular posts and focus on your competitors’ activities from a single dashboard – it’s that simple. It is a very practical tool to be aware of what your competitors publish, create and promote on social networks.
Feel free to integrate other tracking tools, such as Brandwatch and Talkwalker . These apps allow you to visualize how much people are talking about your brand online compared to how much they are talking about your competitors. The data will be presented in the form of attractive and colorful graphs.
Add some profiles you want to follow and Hootsuite will create streams in real time. You can participate and react to any of the posts in your feed.
Use Hootsuite Insights to detect important online conversations, measure brand sentiment against your top competitors, and see your products through the eyes of your customers. To stay up to date, activate alerts. By the way, Hootsuite is also an amazing tool for planning, creating, and publishing social media content – be sure to check out all its features!
Prices start at $19 USD per month for one user. And of course, there’s a 30-day free trial.
Popsters
Popsters is a tool focused on analyzing the performance of content on social networks. It allows you to analyze the page of any of your competitors and obtain statistical graphs and data on the engagement of their publications. You can filter posts by reaction type, popularity, text length, engagement, date or any other parameter to define which posts have performed best.
There are over 20 charts showing data on the most popular hashtags on the page, total likes, shares, comments, engagement rates, average post effectiveness based on day of the week, etc. You can analyze up to 10 pages at a time from any supported social network. Analysis results can be exported as a PDF, XLSX or PPTX document (with native Office graphics).
You can try this tool free for 7 days. Pricing starts at $9.99 USD per month for unlimited analytics for 1 social media platform.
Sociality.io
Sociality.io allows you to analyze the presence of your competitors on all social networks and from all possible angles. Detailed graphs will show your performance compared to them. All important metrics (engagement, number of followers and interactions) will be available in a few minutes.
You can simultaneously compare up to 15 pages of your competitors and download personalized reports with simple and precise tables and graphs, plus your brand logo. These reports are suitable for both internal analysis and client reporting.
The platform has four different plans, starting at $15 USD per month for one user. All premium features are available during the 14-day free trial. You can also create your own personalized plan based on your business goals.
Sprout Social
We are sure that you will never get tired of this super powerful tool. Sprout Social provides the means to create, manage and distribute social content, but more importantly for us, it helps you evaluate performance and stay on top of social conversations.
Start by adding your competitors’ profiles. You can find and filter historical data in just a few clicks. Sprout Social’s powerful tools will also take your analytics to the next level by giving you information in the format you prefer: detailed charts, graphs, and KPI statistics.
Sprout Social helps you discover trends and get honest opinions with social listening. Track and analyze conversations around relevant topics to understand consumer sentiment toward your competitors’ brands. Plus, you’ll discover how much people are really talking about your brand.
There is a 30-day trial period to get familiar with the platform. Once finished, you can choose one of three plans, starting at $99 USD per month per user.
Social Insider
Social Insider is all about saving time and impressing clients. Provides a unified dashboard for analytics and reporting. But it also helps you understand where you stand against your competitors on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Unlike the previous platforms, it is a fairly minimalist tool. It doesn’t overwhelm you with functionality, but it provides you with all the metrics you need.
Add the profiles you want to compare and the app will give you quick statistics instantly. It will also show you the best posts and the number of followers.
The free trial lasts 14 days. Prices start at $83 USD per month for one user.
Phlanx
Sometimes you want to take a shortcut, Phlanx is a competitive analysis tool that does just that. It is an online marketing platform that has an engagement calculator for all popular social networks. It was developed for influencers, but its functions will help you check how real your competitors’ audience is.
You can use this feature for free. There’s also a 30-day free trial if you want to generate detailed reports, analyze brand mentions and demographic data. Prices start at $25 USD per month for one user.
How many tools do you have to use?
So many competitive analysis tools, so little time. But don’t worry, it is not necessary to use them all at the same time. Choose a powerful tool for each specific task. Remember that it is advisable to carry out an analysis at least once a month, but also, and above all, that you need to implement the best strategies to increase your brand’s online presence.
