Are You Using Social Media to Keep Track of Your Competitors?

by | Sep 15, 2011

We all like to know what our competitors are doing, and more importantly, what customers are saying about them. Until the advent of social media, it was hard to track conversations from customers. There are several platforms, tools and tactics that you can implement to help you keep ahead of the competition.

Adam Holden-Bache in a recent article in Social Media B2B outlines 6 Ways to Beat Your Competition Using Social Media. Here are some highlights:

  • Do your research – Set up tools and key words/phrases to monitor both the competition as well as the industry.
  • Identify opportunities – If you see a topic or trend gaining traction, promote your capabilities.
  • Produce more educational content – Decision makers are doing more research online. The more relevant content you can provide, the better the chances of you being considered.
  • Showcase your service and support – B2B companies that excel in providing prompt customer service should promote it as it will influence a purchasing decision.
  • Ask for feedback, then use it – Customers can be a good resource for honest feedback.
  • Engage your customers – If your customers like you, they will tell their friends and business associates. They are what we call brand advocates and they turn out to be one of your best resources.

Free Monitoring Tools to Track Your Competition (or Yourself)

www.Topsy.com is a real-time social search that lets you see what people are saying about a topic across social platforms which provides qualitative feedback.

www.socialmention.com is another real-time search that analyzes strength, sentiment, passion and reach, as well as provides averages, keywords, top users and other metrics that all show impact and reach of social activity.

www.google.com/trends analyzes search and news reference volumes for topics and produces the top regions and cities allowing you to see how popular a topic or brand is as well as where it is popular.

www.howsociable.com measures social visibility of brands allowing you to see how active brands are on 20 different platforms.

These are some ideas on how to monitor the competition. What are you doing using social media?

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