A social media competitor analysis evaluates your competitors’ social platforms, content, engagement, audience, and paid strategies to identify opportunities for your own brand. Here’s how to conduct one in 10 steps.

With so many brands vying for attention across social media platforms, understanding how your social presence stacks up against competitors can help you build a stronger strategy.

A social media competitor analysis shows you what other brands are doing well, where they’re falling short, and where there may be opportunities to differentiate your business.

Let’s explore the best methods and tools for conducting a competitive analysis for social media, with help from HawkSEM Senior Lead Strategist and social media expert Nicole Goodnough.

social media competitor analysis

Before you get too far in your social media analysis, identify the purpose of running one in the first place. (Image: Unsplash)

How to conduct a competitor analysis for social media

To conduct a social media competitor analysis, follow these 10 steps:

1. Identify competitors

Start by identifying three to five brands that compete for the same audience, customers, or market as your business.

Include direct competitors that offer similar products or services, but also consider brands that may compete with you for your audience’s attention on social media.

To identify your competition, search Google for the products, services, and keywords your target customers would use to find a business like yours. Note the companies that consistently appear in the search engine results, then search those brands on the social platforms you plan to analyze.

From there, narrow your list to competitors that are actively posting and targeting a similar audience.

2. Set your goals

Before you get too far in your social media analysis, identify the purpose of running one in the first place.

Some common goals of a social media competitor analysis are:

  • Improving organic reach
  • Determining the best social platform for your brand
  • Increasing engagement or number of followers
  • Optimizing social ads

3. Identify which social media platforms they use

Learn which social media channels your competitors leverage, such as Facebook, TikTok, X, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Do they see the most engagement on Instagram or LinkedIn? The answer could indicate where your target audience is spending most of their social media scrolling time, which can help inform your own social strategy.

4. Analyze competitors’ content strategies

Examine the type of content your competitors are posting on social media.

Look at posting frequency, topics, messaging, tone of voice, and format, such as short-form video, long-form video, images, carousels, Stories, and text posts.

Use this information to consider what types of social media content could enhance your own social media marketing strategy.

5. Compare key social media metrics

Gain a better understanding of how your competitors engage with and grow their network by evaluating key performance metrics, including:

  • Profile activity: Follower count, posting frequency, and follower growth when available
  • Content performance: Engagement by content type, top-performing posts, and image-to-video ratio
  • Engagement: Likes, comments, shares, views, and branded hashtag usage
  • Brand positioning: Tone of voice, recurring themes, and how the brand interacts with its audience

Compare your own social media performance against your competitors. Look for areas where you can improve and identify opportunities to differentiate yourself.

Pro tip: It’s a good idea to look at the average engagement by post type (video, photo, text, link) to compare to your posts as well.

woman in hat looking at cell phone

Automating the tracking of competitors is the most effective way to get the most up-to-date monitoring and data. (Image: Unsplash)

6. Review influencer and creator partnerships

Look at the influencers and creators your competitors partner with, the content those partnerships produce, how frequently they collaborate, and how audiences respond.

Pay attention to the types of creators they work with, the platforms they prioritize, and whether partnerships appear to be one-off sponsored posts or ongoing relationships. This can help you identify creators your audience follows and opportunities for your own influencer marketing strategy.

7. Analyze their paid social strategy

After reviewing your competitors’ organic social content, shift focus to their paid marketing campaigns.

Start by looking for ads your competitors are running. The easiest method depends on the platform:

  • Meta: Search the competitor in the Meta Ad Library
  • LinkedIn: Go to the competitor’s company page > Posts > Ads to view ads from that company that LinkedIn makes available
  • TikTok: Use TikTok Creative Center to research ads, trends, and top-performing creative
  • Google/YouTube: Google Ads Transparency Center lets you search advertisers and view ads they’ve run across Google properties, including YouTube.

Once you find their ads, analyze the formats, messaging, calls to action (CTAs), offers, landing pages, and creative styles they use. Look for patterns across multiple ads rather than focusing on a single campaign.

8. Review customer feedback

Monitor customer reviews, comments, and mentions about your competitors on social media.

Pay attention to both positive and negative feedback to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, notice how (or if) your competitors respond to feedback.

9. Identify opportunities

Compare your own social media performance against your competitors. Look for areas where you can improve and opportunities to differentiate yourself by identifying:

  • Content gaps
  • Topics/formats getting strong engagement
  • Audience pain points
  • Weaknesses you can capitalize on
  • Trends worth testing

10. Monitor competitors over time

Continuously monitor your competitors’ social media activities and adapt your strategy accordingly. Keep an eye on new trends, campaigns, and initiatives they undertake.

Depending on your industry and competitive landscape, this could mean conducting a more comprehensive analysis quarterly while using social media monitoring and competitive analysis tools to keep tabs on major changes between audits.

Top social media competitor analysis tools

Leveraging social media competitor analysis tools can make the task more efficient, timely, and precise. These are a few of our favorites for the job.

1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social allows brands to monitor their competitors’ social media activities, track their content performance, and compare engagement metrics.

Brands can use Sprout Social to gain valuable insights into their competitors’ strategies and identify areas for improvement, such as the kind of content they create and the formats they use.

2. Semrush

Semrush provides data on competitors’ social media profiles, top-performing content, and audience engagement.

Brands can use Semrush to benchmark their performance against competitors and identify audience growth opportunities.

3. BuzzSumo

This tool allows brands to identify the most shared content from their competitors, analyze their content performance, and track their social media engagement.

Brands can use BuzzSumo to gain inspiration for their content strategy and identify gaps to fill.

4. Brandwatch

Brandwatch provides insights into competitors’ social media conversations and sentiment analysis. It allows brands to track mentions of their competitors, monitor industry trends, and understand the sentiment around their brand and competitors.

Brands can use Brandwatch to stay updated on competitor activities and identify opportunities for engagement.

5. Hootsuite

This is a tool that helps brands monitor their top competitors’ social media accounts, track their content performance, and compare engagement metrics.

Brands can use Hootsuite to track competitors’ performance, compare social metrics, and identify content and posting strategies that generate engagement.

It’s a good fit for teams that want competitor analysis alongside their day-to-day social publishing and social media management tools.

6. Rival IQ

Rival IQ is built around social media competitive analysis and benchmarking. Marketers can monitor their competitive landscape and compare metrics like engagement rate, content performance, and audience activity across social network platforms.

Its emphasis on competitive benchmarking makes it particularly useful for brands that want to track competitors continuously rather than conduct an occasional manual audit.

7. Meta Ad Library

Meta Ad Library is a free tool that lets you search ads currently running across Meta products. Use it to see which ads competitors are running and study their messaging, creative formats, offers, and calls to action.

While it doesn’t provide the same performance data as a competitor analytics platform, it can reveal patterns in competitors’ paid social strategies and inspire ideas for your own campaigns.

Why conduct a social media competitor analysis?

There are many advantages to conducting a competitor analysis for social media. According to Goodnough, analyzing your competitors can help you do three main things:

  • See gaps in the market and how your business can do better
  • Position your business above the competition
  • Discover industry trends

“Sometimes it can be difficult to step back and take a look at your own social media,” says Goodnough. “So reviewing your competitors’ efforts can help you identify improvements for your own social, or even determine what you’re doing well already.”

A thorough competitor analysis can also unearth customer insights and feedback so you can be sure your business does things better and meets the needs of your customer base.
Pro tip: Researching your competition isn’t about stealing ideas or mimicking them. Rather, it’s to see what they’re doing well, what they could do better, and how to position your business ahead of them. The insights you uncover will inform and strengthen your social media strategy and drive growth for your business.

Social media competitive analysis template

Use this free template to guide your next social media competitive analysis:

  • Identify three to five relevant competitors
  • Define the goals of your analysis
  • Identify which social media platforms competitors use
  • Analyze their content topics, formats, messaging, and posting frequency
  • Compare key performance and engagement metrics
  • Review influencer and creator partnerships
  • Analyze competitors’ paid social ads and strategies
  • Review customer comments, mentions, and feedback
  • Identify content gaps, weaknesses, trends, and opportunities to differentiate
  • Revisit your analysis regularly and monitor competitors over time

The bottom line

A social media competitor analysis gives you valuable context for your own performance, social media presence, and strategy.

By tracking competitors’ audiences, content, engagement, paid campaigns, feedback, and overall social presence, you can identify what’s working in your industry — and opportunities to stand out.

Need help analyzing your competitors’ social media strategies?

HawkSEM’s team of experts leverages social media analytics tools, social listening tools, and in-depth reporting to deliver a comprehensive competitor analysis.

Ready to build an effective social media strategy? Reach out.

This article has been updated and was originally published in April 2021.

Caroline Cox

Caroline Cox

Caroline is HawkSEM's senior content marketing manager. Through more than a decade of professional writing and editing experience, she creates SEO-friendly articles, educational thought leadership pieces, and savvy social media content to help market leaders create successful digital marketing strategies. She's a fan of reading, yoga, new vegetarian recipes, and paper planners.