3 Ways to Monitor Competitors on Social Media

Too few B2B marketers are utilizing social media to monitor one of their best sources for competitive information.  B2B marketers are surrounded by a wealth of easily accessible information as their competitors are continuously testing content on various social platforms.  B2B marketers should observe their competitors, analyze what is working and then apply the results to their own online strategy.  Here are three ways to monitor competitors’ social media activities:

1. Create Alerts

Develop and set up competitor alerts by creating custom news feeds to keep an eye on competitors’ activities.  Marketers can use private Twitter lists to track their competitors, create a Feedly account and subscribe to RSS feeds, use Tweetdeck to filter out mentions of any Twitter use, and even use Facebook Pages to Watch.  By observing which platforms their competitors are using, posting frequency and level of engagement on the posts, B2B marketers can learn which platforms to focus their own strategy on, therefore creating a more targeted approach.

2. Watch Trends

Monitor competitors’ social media content and take note of which topics are trending.  With the created news feeds, B2B marketers should be tracking top-performing competitor content and noticing trends that occur.  B2B marketers can view the most shared content and which keywords are performing the best. Finding out which topics are performing the best with their competitors, B2B marketers save time on their own testing.  They can skip to content development as they have insight into which topics their customers are interested in and which content they should skip producing.

3. Track Influencers

Analyze who is discussing and sharing competitors’ content to get a better idea of who the customers are.  By observing the content that is most shared and in which the conversations focus around, B2B marketers can gain a better understanding of who their target truly is.  Therefore, they can create content that is relevant and targeted directly to the buyers.

B2B marketers can fast-forward their testing process by researching their competitors’ social media use, observing their actions and implementing successes into their own marketing strategy.  While B2B marketers do not want to directly copy their competitors, they can learn what topics are of interest to their customers and targets, and be able to create a more successful online strategy.

Summary

By observing your competitors and learning from their social content you can gain immediate insights. But be warned! These quick-win tactics that can be extremely helpful are not to be replaced with long-term B2B marketing strategy.