Social Media Competitor Analysis Guide For 2024

Struggling to keep up with your competitors on social media?

Well, it is the same with all the businesses on the internet. Every day, there is a new trend, a new challenge, a new viral story, and to add it on, there is pressure from the company management and stakeholders to drive sales and leads from social media.

So, what’s the solution to all this?

A competitor analysis is a guiding light to help you escape this dark hole and use data to back your social media marketing decisions.

By systematically evaluating your competitor’s social media presence, you can identify strengths and weaknesses and find opportunities to improve your social media efforts.

Additionally, you can stay ahead of the trends, refine your strategies, and allocate resources more effectively to achieve your business goals.

This guide breaks down the complete competitive analysis process into 5 steps. We have also covered 4 tools you can use to get started quickly.

But first…..

What is a Social Media Competitor Analysis?

Competitor analysis evaluates your competitors’ social media presence, strategies, and performance. It involves collecting and analyzing data on how your competitors engage with their audience, the type of content they post, how often they post, and their overall impact.

By gathering all this data, you can identify their strengths and weaknesses, discover market opportunities, and gain insights to boost your own strategy.

Why You Should Perform Competitor Analysis on Social Media?

You are wronged if you think the only reason to do competitive analysis is to copy the strategies of your competitors. To break it down for you, the benefits of doing it are endless, starting from:

• Establishing benchmarks for performance: By doing competitor analysis, you can set realistic and achievable benchmarks by comparing your performance with that of your competitors. Understanding industry standards allows you to gauge your success accurately and set social media benchmarks that help you measure progress, set goals, and continuously improve your craft.
• Mitigating risks: Creating a strategy does not always mean that it will result in success; there are risks and failures involved as well. By closely monitoring your competitors, you can identify potential risks and avoid common pitfalls. If a competitor’s campaign or strategy fails, analyzing why it failed can help you stay clear of similar mistakes.
• Discovering new opportunities: Analyzing also uncovers gaps in the market that you can capitalize on. By observing what your competition is not doing or areas they are weak in, you can find those missing puzzle pieces and offer unique value to your audience.
• Improving social media strategy: Finally, it all boils down to how impactful your social media strategy is. Analyzing and considering all the above-discussed factors can offer valuable insights that you can add to your strategy to improve it.

Now you know why exactly a competitive analysis is important, but how do you go about it?

How To Do a Social Media Competitor Analysis in 5 Steps

We have divided the entire process into 5 complete steps. Here is how you get started:

Step 1: Identify Your Competitors

While some people call it spying, we would term it as intelligent monitoring of your competition. Identifying your competitors is absolutely crucial for an effective competitive analysis.

Start by pinpointing your direct and indirect competitors.

Direct Competitors

Direct competitors are rivals who essentially offer the same products/services as you and target a similar user base. They compete with you directly for users and market share.

For example, if you run a coffee shop in New York, your direct competitors are other coffee shops that operate in the same area.

Take note of your competitors who you know of. There can be many more that you might not be aware of that are in your niche; for that, simply use Google search and type in your related terms.

Look for web pages that rank for those target terms. Also, check businesses that are running pay-per-click ads based on the keywords.

Analyze the results to see which companies frequently appear in the search results. Note all those.

Tip: Remember to use a VPN to find the right search results for the target location.

Indirect Competitors

Indirect competitors are businesses that offer different products but target the same audience or fulfill a similar need.

For example, a bakery store could have indirect competitors such as coffee shops and grocery stores with in-house bakeries.

Track conversations around the relevant keywords, hashtags, and topics. Identify the brand mentioned that attracts your target audience.

Once you have listed all the competitors, let’s break down their social media marketing strategies.

Step 2: Track Your Competitors’ Social Media Activities

What does this mean for you?

You have to actively listen and monitor conversations that your competitors have with their audience.

But how?

You can find this conversation in the form of comments, likes, discussions, etc.

How is it going to help you?

By actively listening, you will be able to determine your competitor’s audience size; it will also lead you to them.

Let’s evaluate which social media platforms your competitors are on. This includes mainstream platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X/Twitter.

a. Gather Competitor Data

Which social media platform should you start with first?

Don’t overthink; start with Facebook.

Facebook competitive analysis

With over 3.070 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the ideal platform for tracking your competitor’s audience.

Take a look at your competitors’ Facebook posts and the “total number of likes” located at the bottom left corner.

Here’s an example of Costa Coffee’s Facebook post with the total number of likes.

Source

Examine the overall performance of your competitor’s Facebook page, including its follower count, posting frequency, and engagement levels.

Here are some metrics to track:

• What is the number of users following the page?
• How often do they post content?
• How many likes, comments, shares, and overall engagement rates are they getting?

Instagram competitive analysis

After Facebook, it’s time for Instagram.

Being a visual-centric platform, Instagram offers unique opportunities for brands. Analyzing your competitors on Instagram can provide insights into content strategies and audience engagement techniques.

Here is an Instagram post from Costa Coffee.

Source

Ask questions such as:

• What is the total number of users following the profile?
• How often do they post?
• What types of posts get the most engagement?
• How do they use Instagram Stories and Reels?

Let’s move to X/Twitter

X/Twitter competitive analysis

Formerly known as Twitter, on X, you should track your competitor’s audience metrics, such as behavior, demographics, likes, and preferences.

• What is the total number of followers?
• How often do they tweet?
• What types of tweets get the most engagement?
• How do they use multimedia in their tweets?
• Are they participating in trending conversations?

Once you analyze your competitors on these platforms, proceed to other social media platforms like LinkedIn, Pinterest, or TikTok.

Now you have gathered the required data, What’s next?

b. Analyze the Collected Data

Create a spreadsheet and note down all the data you have accumulated by tracking the competitor’s social media accounts. While analyzing the competitor’s statistics, some vital questions will spring up.

• Who are the top-performing competitors?
• What platforms are competitors most active on?
• What is the overall sentiment of their audience?
• What types of content do they post?
• What themes or topics are they focusing on?
• How frequently do they post?
• What time of day do they post?
• What is the average engagement rate?
• How do competitors interact with their audience?

These four vital questions are yardsticks that help you determine how active your competitors are.

Active brands usually post at least twice a week. You must carefully analyze the content they post.

Is it promotional?

If yes, check out the frequency and manner in which they publish promotional posts enriched with offers, discounts, or calls to action.

But wait…there’s more

Another area you should analyze is your competitors’ blog content.

Do your competitors publish blogs frequently to interact with the targeted audience?

You can take social media content ideas from competitors and develop improvised content based on similar topics. You can plug your competitors’ posts into BuzzSumo to determine which blog posts have the maximum shares.

Perform a content audit to determine which blog topics resonate the most with the audience. Pay close attention to the blog’s structure.

Finally, compare your blog content with your competitors. You will get answers as to where you lag behind and weak areas you need to work.

However, data analysis alone will not help you. You need actionable insights that can help you understand the severity of the matter.

Step 3: Conduct a SWOT Analysis

Now:

If you want your business to reach the exalted realm of the top marketers, perform the SWOT(strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis.

Here you will understand your strengths and weaknesses; you can also do that for your competitors and identify the threats and opportunities in the industry.

A SWOT analysis helps you understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to your competitor analysis. This strategic planning offers a comprehensive view of where your competitors excel, where they fall short, and how to leverage this data to hone your strategy.

Here is how you can perform a SWOT analysis.

Collect all required data on your competitors. This includes insights from your social media analysis, such as engagement metrics, content strategies, audience demographics, and paid media efforts.

Now comes the analysis part, where you make sense out of the data.

Identify Strengths

Strengths are basically internal factors that your competitors are good at and have the upper hand against others.

Consider these questions:

• What are your competitors good at?
• Which content types and formats generate the most engagement?
• What unique features or benefits do they offer?

Find Weaknesses

These are areas where your competitors fall short or present opportunities for others.

Ask these:

• What type of content or platform does not work for them?
• Where do they underperform?
• What are the common complaints their customers have?

Leverage Opportunities

Opportunities are external factors that can be leveraged to get an advantage. These include a shift in industry trends, change in consumer behavior, or gaps in the market your competitors are not addressing.

Questions to ask:

• What market trends can be capitalized on?
• Are there any emerging social media platforms or features competitors are not utilizing?
• What gaps exist in their strategies that you can exploit?

Analyze Threats

There are always businesses that outrank industry giants and slowly start taking their share of the pie. These are the players you need to put a tight eye on. Threats include external factors that could negatively impact your strategy. These could be competitors, sudden market changes, or platform algorithm updates.

Here is how you can approach this:

• What competitive actions threaten your market position?
• Are there newcomers in the market with disruptive products or strategies?
• How are changes in social media algorithms affecting your visibility?

The idea is to gather as much data as possible to help you develop a more effective competitive strategy.

After the SWOT analysis, you have identified the growth opportunities. Next, you must use that analysis.

Step 4: Update Your Social Media Strategy

It’s time to take some action.

After conducting a comprehensive competitive analysis, it’s essential to update your own strategy based on the insights gained.

Start with going back and setting social media goals. Ensure they align with your overall business objectives. Ensure your goals are SMART.

Use insights from your competitors to understand what content types and themes resonate with your target audience and start leveraging that. Address gaps found in your SWOT analysis, such as improving customer service responses or ensuring consistent branding.

Observe how your competitors interact with their target audience. Respond promptly to comments, appreciate UGC, and initiate conversations with polls and Q&As. This will help you build loyalty and improve brand perception.

Leverage trending topics and use hashtags that your competitors are already using to generate good engagement. Create unique branded hashtags to increase your reach and engagement.

Adjust your posting schedule based on when your audience is most active. Find your best times to post and create a content calendar to maintain consistency.

Finally, turn your weaknesses into wins. Fill gaps where competitors fall short and capitalize on opportunities.

Simply put

Do not waste time on strategies that are not working. You have to observe, listen, learn, and improve.

Doesn’t it all sound overwhelming? Worry not. You can automate your tasks using the competitive analysis tools.

Top 4 Social Media Competitor Analysis Tools

Performing competitive analysis and monitoring every move of your competitors could be tedious.

Here are some excellent analysis tools that help you spy on your competitors’ marketing strategies.

AgoraPulse

Agorapulse is a comprehensive social media management platform with features like social listening, detailed performance insights, and a unified social inbox. This is best suited for mid-sized businesses, mid-sized agencies, and some enterprise brands. This tool allows you to compare your past performance with competitors and track key metrics.

SocialInsider

SocialInsider simplifies competitive social media analysis with an intuitive dashboard that offers comprehensive analytics and reporting. You can quickly download your analysis reports, examine branded hashtags, and more. It allows you to compare multiple competitor profiles side-by-side and draw concrete conclusions for your strategy.

Rival IQ

Rival IQ helps craft more effective social media strategies by benchmarking your performance against competitors and offering detailed analytics. It includes competitive analysis, profile monitoring, and popular topic identification features. It suits businesses and marketers who perform post-analysis and social media audits and want reporting capabilities.

SproutSocial

It is an all-in-one platform that simplifies competitive research and provides detailed reports on social media performance. It offers features like social listening, detailed reports, interactive charts, and graphs for better data representation, as well as an interactive user experience.

If you want more options, then visit our blog on competitor analysis tools.

And we are done!

Ready to Analyze?

So, what did we learn?

In the continuously evolving era of social media, staying competitive requires more than creativity and regularly posting content. You need to conduct a thorough social media competitor analysis to understand what works in your industry, allowing you to refine your strategy and outclass your rivals.

Analyzing your competition can help you identify their strengths and weaknesses, help you understand their content strategies, and spot potential opportunities and threats. Using tools, you can ensure data-driven accuracy.

In summary, regularly update your strategy based on competitor insights, be proactive, and set clear goals.

This is the key to building a strong and successful social media presence.