I want to use that old saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” with regards to social media and in particular your competitors. Now it doesn’t matter what business you are in as you are sure to have competitors who are taking you on and possibly stealing business from you. Some people go with the logic of just ignoring their competitors and just saying “Ah sure we will just do better” leaving their competitors to go about their business. In the old days you might pop in and see the competition or word would filter through on the grapevine as to what they were up to but luckily with social media and the web you can now watch every single move your competitor makes. It is scary what you can find out about your competitors these days and if used correctly it can give you a massive advantage in business terms…

Who Should Use This?

Most people will need to keep an eye on their competitors in some shape or another but you also shouldn’t get caught up in spending too much time on them either. See what they are doing, better it and move on to concentrating on your own product. some people who could use the following tools…

Start Ups

You want to bring something new to market and there is only one other competitor out there. Employ all of the tools below and it will be as if you are inside your competitors head. People who run start ups are usually proud about their product and will shout about it to anybody who will listen. Sit back and let all that info come to you.

Local Business

If you run a local business you’ll need to know everything that is going on in your area. You don’t want the competition around the block offering the same product as you but at half the price. Get tuned in to all your competitors social media channels and find out when they are offering special deals so as you can come back with your own.

The Big Guys

Large companies and corporations spend millions figuring out what their competitors are up to and what they are going to be releasing next. Large companies also have lots of employees so get yourself tuned into their culture. You may also want to listen to what blogs are saying about your competitor’s products and prices to improve your own.

The Tools To Use

There are as always a bunch of expensive brand monitoring tools out there that will cost you thousands to use but the good news is that the little selection we have used here are all free so you can get stuck in immediately.

Google Alerts

Set up alerts around your competitors company name, names of people within the company, product names and even their clients names. You’ll be sent a daily update with all mentions from the web of what they are up to and you’ll easily be able to find out if anything significant is happening around the company or any of it’s team. Google Alerts

Twitter Search

Very similar to the last one but you’ll be able to drill down into a lot more detail and you should focus on the personality or management team behind the company. If they have a presence on Twitter you can always follow but don’t need to say anything to them. This should help you find out if they are working on any big releases or chatter between employees might even give some secrets away. Twitter Search

Backtype

The beauty of this little tool is that you can get alerts about where your competitors are talking all over the web. Follow their trail as they aim to promote their own website and see who they have interactions with online. Have they discovered websites and communities that you haven’t? Not anymore! Back Type

Website Grader

You can use this simple little tool to generate a report not only about your own site but about your competitor’s website as well. Find out who is linking to them, what their Google PR is and lots of other juicy information that you need to be competing on. Website Grader

Subscribing

You need to subscribe to your competitor in any way you possibly can. If they offer any way to subscribe to their blog or newsletter or latest updates then you need to be on that list. Immediately! Chances are that if they think something is important enough to be sending out to their loyal subscribers or mailing list them you want to know about it too.

Way Back Machine

Your competitors might have been around for a while and you’ll want to see what they have tried in the past and what has worked and they have decided to keep on their site. Use this tool to look back on their website over time and paint a picture of how their site has been changing. Way Back Machine

What To Do With All This Info?

This is mostly a listening excercise and it is in your best interests to stay under the radar on this one but you should be doing a lot with all this great information you are gathering. Ask yourself some of the following questions…

1. What is my competitor doing better than me and can I apply that to my business?
2. What is my competitors’ relationship like with their customers? Can I replicate their customer service?
3. Are there areas where I am already better but need to improve further?
4. Who are their key relationships with/customers. How can I have similar relationships?
5. What sales channels are working for them?

If you follow these steps you’ll start to build up a picture of where your competitors are at and what makes them tick. You’ll know how they drive traffic to their websites, you’ll know what the founders are talking about, you’ll have every advertising mention of them as well as how they reply to positive and negative feedback. You will in effect have used social media to get under the bonnet of their company and you will have the information at hand to make the right decisions around your own orginisation.

Do you already listen to what your competitors are saying? Should you be?

Possibly Related Posts:

• Social Media Stats UK 2010 Video
• Where does social media fit?
• Social Media Interview Of The Week – Jason Falls
• How do teens use social media?
• The Social Media Numbers Game And Why It Is Best Not To Participate