Why You Should Follow Competitors on Social Media

Competition in digital marketing is always fierce, regardless of your niche. Social media has enabled small companies and individuals to reach a large audience. Therefore, having great content and a solid social media strategy is crucial. However, the question remains: Should you follow your competitors on social media?

Determining whether to pay attention to the actions of others on a social platform can be difficult. Nonetheless, it is argued that understanding the online behaviours of both colleagues and competitors on any social media site can be beneficial.

To effectively engage with your audience on social media, it’s essential to understand your competition’s social media marketing strategies and level of engagement with their user base. This can provide valuable insights for creating content and determining market share.

Here are a few reasons to consider following the competition on social media.

To effectively engage with your audience on social media, it's essential to understand your competition's social media marketing strategies and level of engagement with their user base. Click To Tweet

Table of Contents

Knowing What Works

Online competition can be both good and bad. It’s bad because they’re targeting the same audience as you in their marketing campaign. But it’s also good because they’re targeting the same audience as you. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative thing, as you can both vie for the attention of the same population.

Observing competitors share of voice on social media can offer valuable insights, including new ideas to improve engagement rates. You can enhance your social presence, content strategy and online brand quality by monitoring audience reactions.

According to Sprout Social’s survey, 85% of companies rely on social data as a primary source of business insights.

For example, when creating social media content for a budget travel YouTube channel, it’s essential to recognise that others are doing the same thing. However, some may try new content or different platforms to increase followers. Competitors may also use TikTok or other social media accounts. They may even decide to focus on their website search engine optimisation to attract potential customers to their social profiles.

Check your social media metric using your preferred social media management tool. Then ask yourself: Is performing organic SEO and PPC campaigns on a website worth the time and effort? Are your targeted audience members even using TikTok?

Check your social media metric using your preferred social media management tool. Click To Tweet

To avoid wasting resources, check your competition’s social media presence, specifically their subscriber and follower count.

Content Quality

The internet is constantly changing quickly. Social media didn’t exist thirty years ago. Adapting your social strategy to the frequency of changes on social media is difficult. However, quality content improves social performance in this constantly shifting industry.

Quality content is crucial, regardless of your technical knowledge, resources, or strategy. Is your content the best it can be? Or is there an opportunity for improvement? Consider length, imagery, and audio. Is there a consistent theme across all posts, or are they random?

Use these questions as a starting point for creating different types of content. Get any affordable social media monitoring tool and use it to generate social media reports that will help you gain deeper insights into your social media performance metrics.

By observing the social media activity of direct competitors, you can gain insight. Analyse the brands that outperform your own and note their strategies.

Get any affordable social media monitoring tool and use it to generate social media reports that will help you gain deeper insights into your social media performance metrics. Click To Tweet

Investing in a social media competitor analysis tool or management platform can help business owners and marketers deduce their competitors’ strategies and content types.

Do you have a distinct brand for your social media profile or channel? Is there a recognisable logo in your social media post? It’s essential to have a consistent feed without messy, inconsistent content. A clear brand image can help establish a long-term relationship with your target audience.

Criticism is inevitable online, but having a positive relationship with your fan base is essential. Constructive criticism can help you improve and reach more people. It’s also necessary to focus on promotion by sharing your content regularly on popular platforms and monitoring your performance with a social media analytics tool. You can learn from your competition by following their online presence.

Knowing What Doesn’t Work

To know what won’t work in your niche, it’s crucial to analyse your competitors’ social media efforts. Just because they’re thriving on X (Twitter) doesn’t mean they’ll succeed on Instagram. Is this a result of a poor social media strategy or simply not a good fit for the niche? Look at where your competition is underperforming and try to understand why.

For example, using a social media tool, you may observe that they are recording a high engagement metric via InstaStories, but their posts could lack comments, views, and likes. Analyse what they’re doing wrong, and avoid making those mistakes as you build your online presence. Also, monitor their campaigns on other social networks to see if they follow proper business practices for audience growth. They may not be suited for your niche if they are but are still unsuccessful. This information is valuable to you.

Do you have a distinct brand for your social media profile or channel? Is there a recognisable logo in your social media post? It's essential to have a consistent feed without messy, inconsistent content. Click To Tweet

Examine their content creation efforts to determine which subjects and areas to avoid. For instance, are they generating substantial video content or allocating resources to video marketing without achieving desired outcomes?

Regarding budget travel vlogs, Q&A videos may not be universally popular. To avoid wasting time, it may be helpful to analyse your competitors’ lacklustre performance and learn from their mistakes. This approach can help you focus on creating more valuable and profitable content.

Getting Inspiration

Maintaining a constant creative flow is difficult when building an online presence. Everyone, even the most innovative, can get stuck in a rut. This is a problem when your online brand’s success relies on regular content. If you’re unsure what kind of video or blog post to create next, use hashtags or competitive analysis tools to search and see what your competition has succeeded with.

While we don’t condone plagiarism, reviewing content in your niche for inspiration is helpful. If you decide to write on a similar topic, add your unique twist and brand personality. Accusations of plagiarism can be damaging to your online brand. However, putting in the effort to create original content can lead to loyal followers.

Always pay attention to your follower base and their engagement. Don’t take it personally if a popular video doesn’t resonate with them. Instead, reflect and develop something different that your followers will appreciate.

You should follow your competitors on social media platforms. Click To Tweet

The Bottom Line

You should follow your competitors on social media platforms. There are practical reasons for doing so. Competition can push you to improve in various aspects of your business, such as customer service. Look at other accounts and influencers in your niche to learn what the target audience likes and dislikes. Your competitors offer valuable digital marketing information. You could even consider professional cooperation with others on your social channel. Such ideas are well-received these days.

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