Business

5 Ways To Spy On Your Competitors

Looking into your competition is a thing that every business needs to be doing. Once you find out what’s working for them and what is not, then you can benefit from that information. In theory, checking out your competitors is basically market research, but in reality, it’s actually spying.

But, we’ll stick with the term market research, and you should be doing it already. In case you feel uncomfortable spying on your competitors, think of the fact that if you’re any kind of force to be rivaled within your sector, they are most likely already spying on you.

Nowadays, there are plenty of ways to find out what your competition is successful with and what isn’t. This article focuses on the less obvious ways in which you can do so. So, read below to find them out.

Check How Your Competition Engages On Instagram

This is a great way to spy on your competitors, especially since Instagram is one of the most used social media networks for selling. However, try not to follow your competitors with your business account. Because they’ll know that you’re spying on them.

Once you’ve set up a new Instagram account, start to perceive how they communicate with their audience. See how they respond to comments, what they share, and what they follow.

Furthermore, see what they post, what they like, and what kind of posts they comment on. It’s important to check how your competition acts in their own territory and what kind of voice they use to talk to their followers. The final goal is to realize how much attention they give their audience.

Follow Their Instagram Stories

As we mentioned before, you shouldn’t be obvious when you follow your competitors on Instagram. So, always use another account they don’t know and follow their posts and more importantly their Instagram Stories. If their profile is public, you can also use an Instagram Story viewer tool instead of using another account to watch Stories completely anonymously.

Also, don’t forget that any kind of content, whether it’s a photo, a video, or a Story is special to an audience. It can stimulate you to adjust it for your own audience. Our advice to your brand isn’t to copy but to adapt. Check what your competitor’s audience is like and what they like and engage with, and try to produce content for your Instagram profile that is similar.

Use Facebook Page Transparency

Because of Facebook’s efforts to improve transparency, the social platform has made it easy enough for users to check out what ads businesses are running across the network. So, how can you actually find that out? When you visit a brand’s page, you’ll see on the right side, generally somewhere in the bottom part of the column, a box that says ‘Page transparency’.

When you click on ‘see more’ a pop-up window will appear which will tell you if a certain page is running ads or not. You can next click on the ‘Ad library’ and that’s where you’ll find what you need.

If a brand is running ads, you’ll see thumbnails of them sorted by month. Additionally, you can even check the precise date that a certain ad started running. Plus, there’s a geographical filter as well to check the location of where your competitors are running ads.

Set Up Google Alerts Account

This is a simple, handy, and free way to get an alert each time a competitor’s brand is being mentioned online. Google Alert monitors blogs, videos, news, discussions, and even books.

Just enter the Google Alerts page, fill out your search request with a brand’s name, and select how frequently you want the results to be supplied to your inbox. A group of additional online tools are also available to monitor brand mentions, however, Google Alerts remains one of the most used.

Check Your Competitor’s SEO

You must wonder how your competition can obtain so many users. As already stated, they most likely run ads, however, no one can afford to purchase 100% of traffic. Usually, the answer is always the same – organic traffic from search engines or Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

For example, two brands offering very similar products or services can place themselves on the market in two diverse ways and consequently use or highlight dissimilar keywords.

In the same way as paid keywords, it’s useful to know what keywords make organic traffic to a brand’s website. As a result, you should try to optimize your website for similar keywords.

Final Words

We hope you’ve learned something about how to spy on your competitors. You can search for more ways to spy on your competitors and try them out. Just bear in mind to use the gathered information wisely and use it so your business benefits from it, but never copy your competitors.

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