Competitor analysis is an excellent way for businesses to situate their current marketing efforts in the right context. It provides perspective and can be a fountain of ideas for other initiatives worth taking on.
The beauty of social media and digital marketing is that a huge amount of useful data is publicly available.
It does take time and a bit of skill to mine that data but the results are well worth it.
Here are 4 things you can do to help you gain some insights about your competition using Twitter
1. Make a list of your competition
This is the first step in finding competitor insights that will be useful in your marketing efforts. It must include both direct and indirect competition.
At this stage, do not underestimate any brand. Whether they are big, small, active or inactive, ensure you include them on your list.
2. Discover conversations with search
You can use keywords and hashtags to perform various searches on Twitter to discover how competitor brands are engaging with consumers.
What is the content of their conversation? Who are the ones getting the most engagement? Are they saying things that you can adapt?
3. Create a Twitter list
Twitter lists are useful as they help to quiet down the noise that is very much associated with this social network.
Create a Twitter list and include all your competitors in it. This allows you to save all competitor feeds in a single list to keep track of the kind of content they’re sharing and who they’re engaging with.
4. Analyse their followers and who they are following
Once you’ve identified the competition you can use one of the free tools available online to find out more about who follows them.
You can use a free tool like Followerwonk, which allows you to compare your own Twitter profile against your competitors. It enables you to look at the data of those who follow your competition, including follower counts, social authority and Twitter bios.
This information allows you to work out which users are potentially the most influential in your niche and who you should be trying to engage with.
Admittedly, Twitter can be somewhat difficult to navigate, particularly because of how much content is generated by users within a very short period of time.
Nonetheless, this network provides a great platform to discover useful information about competitor brands, while allowing businesses to engage in meaningful conversations with users.
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