As an entrepreneur, keeping your eye on what the competition is up to is par for the course. One of the best ways to benchmark yourself against your competition is to engage in what’s known as social listening. This is about following the digital footprint of your competition, especially on social media, and seeing what they are saying and doing and how people are responding to it.
By checking out what your competitors are up to on social media you may even be able to get some good tips for your own marketing efforts so here’s what to look out for…
Brand Positioning – What is your competition saying about themselves on social media and what kind of response are they getting? Are they getting plenty of interaction? What kind of products and services are they pushing?
Brand Awareness – Does engagement in their brand appear to be growing or diminishing? How does it compare to yours?
What’s being shared? – What kind of posts are being shared? Are people engaging more with your competitors than they are with you? If so, why do you think that is? Whilst social media likes and followers is one measure, it’s not as important as the mentions, interaction, re-tweets or re-posts that may be happening so what are they doing different to you?
Future Projects – Are they talking about any future projects that are coming up? What are they saying about work they are currently working on? Just by googling them you can get an idea on whether they are doing any pay-per-click advertising or re-marketing campaigns.
Tracking your competition like this may seem like paranoia but it’s what any business should be doing to see what they’re up against and to get ideas about their own offering.
There is no doubt that benchmarking your business against the competition can help you come up with new ideas, better ways to improve audience engagement and enable you to gain that critical competitive-edge so it’s worth being a bit nosey!