When it comes to social media you want to keep your friends close, and your competitors even closer!!! In this post, I’ll share my favorite social media tools to track competitors without worrying they’ll know I’m spying on them (shhh … 🤫)
What does “Competitor Analysis” even mean?
You’ve probably heard marketers talk about “spying on competitors” or using “social listening” tools and tactics to discover their competitors’ most hidden secrets.
Okay. Hate to break it to you but leaving the “spy” jargon aside Competitor Analysis is actually studying your competitors and trying to identify their marketing strategies. And you guessed it – there’s no actual “spying” or “stealing” involved. It’s all completely safe and legal.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not a fun task! 🤩
I enjoy using doing Competitor Analysis and looking at data and charts to understand what my competitors are up to:
- What content they’re posting and where?
- Are they getting good/bad results?
- Are they successful in attracting a big audience?
If you’re interested to learn more about the techniques of conducting Competitor Analysis Research 🧐 check out this video tutorial and download the free template linked in video description.
What type of Competitor Data can you get from social media analytics tools?
- Content insights (likes, comments, reach, impressions)
- Follower insights (age, location, number, growth)
- Hashtags (most used, best & worst, total number)
- Publishing frequency (how many posts in a month)
- Publishing times (usual posting times)
- Engagement rate (total interactions/total followers)
- Content format (image, video)
- @Mentions and brand sentiment (positive/negative)
- and more.
Now, before you can start doing your research, you need to choose an analytics software that’s going to help you extract competitor data!
Here are 6 Social Media Analytics Tools to Track Your Competitors:
These tools are either FREE to use, have free plans or come with a limited-time free trials. So feel confident to give them a try and see for yourself whether they’re helpful.
Pallyy – Track your Instagram Competitors’ content, engagement & hashtags
Pallyy is a completely social media management tool with powerful analytics features. You can create custom analytics reports, share them with your clients and benchmark your performance against competitors. This tool is great for those who want to multi-task and manage multiple clients and teams in one place. Learn how to schedule content in Pallyy in this post.
Features: Scheduling Posts to all Social Media Platforms, Visual Content Calendar, Social Media Analytics, Competitors Tracking, Hashtags, Team Collaboration & Communication Tools, Social Inbox for all Comments Management, Downloadable Analytics Reports, Link in bio tool.
Pricing: FREE for scheduling 15 posts, 14 Day FREE TRIAL for Pro Plan starts at $15/mo. for a complete social set (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, GoogleMyBusiness, LinkedIn and TikTok)
Iconosquare – Compare your performance with Industry Benchmark
Iconosquare is a social media analytics tool which allows marketers to also schedule their content. But their most popular features are FREE: Instagram Audit Tool, Facebook Audit Tool, Link in bio tool and Random comment picker for Instagram contests.
Features: Content publishing and analytics for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and Twitter, Paid ad insights, Competitor Analysis , Industry Benchmark, Social Media Listening.
Pricing: Pro Plan at $59/mo for 3 social profiles and 2 users, Advanced at $99/mo for 5 profiles and Enterprise priced at $179/mo for 10 social profile. You can try any of the plans for 14 days free before deciding if you want to commit.
Buzzsumo – Monitor trends
Buzzsumo is a popular social media monitoring platform used for market research today. It’s free to use and gives a snapshot of what content and topics are trending in real-time. You can search for @mentions of a particular brand, influencer or keyword, and see who is posting about it.
Pricing: Free plan for 10 searches/mo., Paid plans start at $99/mo for unlimited searches, Free trials available.
Brand24 – Understand who is talking about your brand online
Brand24 is an excellent tool for finding what people are talking about your brand on social media. This includes reviews, influence score, @mentions, and sentiment analysis. It’s a good place to start when looking at your overall competitor landscape.
Pricing: Starting at $29/mo for up to 3 keywords and 2000 mentions /mo., Free trial is available.
Phlanx – Audit and find out your competitors’ engagement rate
Phlanx is a platform that allows brands to get a quick glance at any social media account or competitor without them knowing. Just type a social media handle in the search bar and you’ll get a free audit on their key stats including engagement rate. Phlanx audit tools work for Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
- Instagram Engagement Calculator Tool by Phlanx
RivalIQ – Study your competitors’ cross-channel content strategy
RivalIQ is a social media analytics dashboard that allows brands to track their cross-channel strategy against 3 competitors in their industry. To get started, you just need to input your website URL and the software identifies your social channels without having to log-in.
- FREE Instagram analysis tool by Rival IQ
Pricing: Plans range from $239/mo – $519/mo depending on how many competitors do you wish to track. A free 30-day trial is available on all plans. They also have FREE analytics tools that don’t require subscriptions.
Conclusion
Competitor analysis is more than keeping a list of competitor websites and their products. It’s now a common thing for marketers to use ai-based social media analytics and listening tools to keep track of their competitor moves in real-time. Hope you try these tools and use them to find out what strategy your competitors are using for social media – and be a step ahead and above them!
PS: Pin this post so you can come back to it!
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