If you’re new to social media marketing or if you’ve been amongst the weeds for some time, there are some ideas that need re-visiting on a regular basis.
Unless you are completely nailing your social campaigns and struggling to see how they could be better, the following quick tip will help you some perspective on your strategy – by comparing it with the competition.
Who are my competitors?
Firstly you need to identify who your competitors are. You may already have a good idea of who they are, but if not, here’s one way to start to develop an idea:
(i) Visit Google Keyword Planner, allow it to analyse your website, get a list of keywords & filter with your common sense.
(ii) Enter those keywords into Google’s search engine and make a note of the websites that are close competitors from the list.
What are my competitors doing with their advertising on social media?
Now that we have an idea of who our competitors are, we need to find out what they are doing. If we have visited a bunch of their websites, we might soon expect to see their ads following us around Facebook, LinkedIn & Instagram. But instead of waiting to see these, there is an easier way to see exactly what they are up to….
There is a little known tool within facebook that allows us to see exactly what ads your competitors are running. If you visit your competitors profile, you will see the section below.
If you click “See More” – you will get the following:
If you click “Ad Library” – you will get the following………
Depending on the competitor in question and your own experience – the likelihood is that seeing you competitor’s ad sets will inspire some great ideas and give you a very good starting point for thinking through your strategy & objectives. If you’re a seasoned veteran – remember that you don’t have a monopoly on great ideas. Build a competitor review into your Bi-monthly management plans.
