Why Should You Follow Your Competitors On Social Media?
With the world going digital, you will find competitors in social media , no matter how selective, unique, or rare your niche is. However, competition is not always a bad thing. Moreover, it is essential to have competitors because if you don’t have any competition, you might need to reconsider your niche.
Here is a detailed overview of why you should be following your competitors on social media.
Taking the right steps
Through social media, you can keep an eye on your competitors and observe them determine what’s working for them. You can handpick a few of their successful practices and implement them to your brand. For example, suppose you have an Instagram page on wildlife photography. You have been working hard and developed a strong foundation, but you notice your competitors in the same niche have more Instagram organic growth and engagement. Maybe, they are doing something which you are not. Compare your account with verified account holders.
When analyzing your competitors, check out and compare the following factors.
Content quality
Are you using the best camera and equipment? Is your editing skills up to the mark? The creatives should be sharp and clear than your competitors. To be the best, your content also needs to be of the best quality.
Branding
Social media branding is more important than you think; it defines your brand and its purpose. Consider these following questions when analyzing your competitor’s branding.
- Do they have a clear brand, and you don’t?
- Does their logo and profile picture provide a clear representation of what they do, and yours, does not?
- Is your posting consistency similar to theirs?
Engagement and relationships
Another vital factor that can pull your brand down on social media is how you engage with your followers. Here are a few factors to compare when analyzing your competitors.
- Do they respond to all the comments and criticism?
- If yes, do they do it in a friendly, constructive, or destructive manner?
- Do they accept followers’ feedback and create content according to the audience’s mindset or just the way they want?
Promotions and advertising
You might be lacking in the way you promote your brand or content to grab audience engagement. Compare your marketing strategy with your competitors to figure out what they are doing.
Once you know what they are doing that you are not are, it’s time to improvise. note down the changes required and get started.
Avoiding the wrong steps
In addition to analyzing what your competitors are doing right, it is also essential to consider what mistakes they are making or have made in the past. Here are a few probable cases in which you can address by analyzing your competitors. You can find many free and paid tools to analyze competitors
Lack of growth on other platforms
Your page is highly successful on Instagram but struggling on Facebook. You tried all the tactics and strategies but failed to engage the audience on Facebook. In such cases, you can look for social media competitors that are facing the same issues and learn from their mistakes.
Lack of growth
So, you started a new page as a fashion vlogger six months ago but still stuck on 1,500 followers. You look for competitors and find a similar page that is out for more than a year and has just 3,000 followers. On closely monitoring the page growth, you discover that the account was posting a lot of mobile-made video content that the audience did not like.
On the other hand, other pages of the same kind uploaded high-quality images consistently and now is standing tall at a quarter of a million followers. So, maybe you were posting a lot of mobile video content, or your images lacked quality, but now, you know what to do and what to avoid to gain audience engagement.
Lack of engagement
Let’s understand this with the example of vlogging. Suppose you have recently started a YouTube travel vlog and checked out one of the leading travel vlogging channels in your country. You find out that vlogs that include scenic places, hotels, restaurants, and historic places get the most views, whereas videos with local activities, transportation, and QnA get lesser views. This example might not be the best to fit in, but you get the context. By looking at your competitors, you can get an idea of what type of content gets more engagement and what areas you should stay away from your competitors.
Benefits of following your competition on social media
By this time, you might have had a clear idea of how to use your competition to your advantage. Now, let’s quickly hover over the benefits of following your competitors.
- It helps you stay ahead of your competition
- You can reduce trial and error by knowing what works and what does not.
- You can find deeper layers of your niche. For example, initial impressions of a fitness page might make it look like a fitness page, but it might have subgroups, such as yoga, meditation, lifting, and calisthenics.
- It helps you identify and learn about your target customers, along with getting an idea of how to get future customers.
- By knowing what products or services your competitors are offering on social media, you can develop your positioning.
- You can see why a brand’s followers are loyal towards it or why not, and you can implement the same strategy on social media to increase your followers and customer loyalty.
- You can compare your competitors’ and create content with your ideas and improve your quality.
How can Einfach Digital help?
With so many competitors in every niche, finding the ideal competitor that resembles your brand can be a challenge. Einfach Digital helps you identify your “real” competitors from which you can get actionable input. Einfach further assists you with analyzing your competitors and their strategies, strengths, and weaknesses, and enables you to make necessary changes in your social media strategy.
