How to Monitor Competitors' Social Media

Watching what your competitors are doing on social media isn't about copying them, it's about understanding the conversation your audience is already having. By paying attention, you'll uncover gaps in their strategy, fresh content inspiration, and valuable insights into what your target customers truly want. This guide breaks down exactly how to run a competitor analysis that gives you a genuine strategic advantage.

Why Monitoring Competitor Social Media is Non-Negotiable

If you're skipping competitor analysis, you're flying blind. It’s an essential practice that informs your entire social media strategy, from the content you create to how you engage with your community. Here’s what you stand to gain.

Uncover Fresh Content Ideas

Are your competitors getting massive engagement from simple Q&A text posts? Are their behind-the-scenes videos a huge hit? Pay attention to their top-performing content, not to steal the ideas, but to understand the topics and formats that resonate with your shared audience. If their how-to carousels always land, that’s a direct signal for you to create your own unique, more valuable take on educational content.

Understand Audience Sentiment and Language

Read the comments on your competitors' posts. What phrases do customers use? What are their biggest complaints or praises? This is free, unfiltered market research. You’ll learn the exact language your audience uses, which you can use to make your own captions and comments more relatable. You might also spot frustrations with a competitor's product or service that you can solve.

Spot Gaps in Their Strategy

Maybe your biggest competitor has a massive Instagram following but completely ignores TikTok. That’s your opening. Perhaps they post great content but take days to respond to comments. That means you can win by providing timely, helpful engagement. Look for what they aren't doing - that's where your biggest opportunities often lie.

Stay on Top of Industry Trends

Competitors can be your early warning system for a new trend or platform feature. If you see a few top players in your space suddenly experimenting with Instagram Threads or YouTube Shorts, it’s a good signal to pay attention. They’ve likely already done the initial research, and you can learn from their early efforts before you invest your own time and resources.

What Exactly Should You Be Monitoring?

A good competitor analysis is systematic. Instead of randomly browsing profiles, focus on specific areas to gather organized, useful intelligence. Make a list of 3-5 key competitors and start tracking these elements.

1. Content Strategy & Performance

• Top Formats: Are they leaning into Reels, static images, detailed carousels, or simple text graphics? Note which formats are their go-to and how performance varies between them.
• Most Engaging Topics: Look at their posts with the highest numbers of likes, comments, and shares. What are they about? Are they educational, entertaining, inspirational, or promotional?
• Posting Frequency: How often are they posting on each platform? Tracking this helps you benchmark your own content calendar. Consistency matters, but quality always trumps quantity.
• Content Pillars: Identify their main content categories. For a coffee shop, it might be Brewing Tutorials, Meet the Barista, and New Drink Features. Understanding their pillars helps you see their overall strategy.

2. Audience Engagement & Community Management

• Response Time & Quality: How quickly do they reply to comments and DMs? Are their responses personal and helpful, or canned and generic? Slow or poor engagement is a gap you can fill.
• User-Generated Content (UGC): Do they encourage and repost content from their followers? UGC is a powerful form of social proof, and if they aren't using it, you can make it a core part of your strategy.
• Conversation Starters: Do they use polls, questions, or other interactive stickers in their stories? How do they encourage conversation in their captions? Look for techniques that successfully spark comments.

3. Brand Voice, Messaging, & Positioning

• Tone of Voice: Is their persona witty and funny, professional and authoritative, or warm and friendly? Their tone should give you clues about how they want their brand to be perceived.
• Value Propositions: Read their bio and popular posts. What key benefit or solution are they constantly talking about? Is it quality, affordability, convenience, or innovation?
• Hashtag Strategy: Take a look at the hashtags they consistently use. Are they using niche community hashtags, broad general ones, or their own branded hashtags? This can signal their target audience and marketing priorities.

How to Systematically Monitor Your Competitors (A 4-Step Plan)

Now that you know what to look for, here’s how to set up a sustainable process for gathering and analyzing this information without it taking over your week.

Step 1: Identify Your Competitors (Direct, Indirect & Aspirational)

Start by making a list. Don’t just limit it to companies that sell the exact same thing you do. Think bigger.

• Direct Competitors: These are the obvious ones. They offer a similar product or service to a similar audience. (e.g., Nike and Adidas).
• Indirect Competitors: They solve the same problem but with a different solution. (e.g., A movie theater's indirect competitor is Netflix).
• Aspirational Brands: These are brands you admire, even if they are in a different industry. They are a great source of inspiration for content formats and community-building techniques. (e.g., a local bakery might look to Milkbar for inspiration).

Step 2: Conduct a Manual Audit (Start Simple)

Before you invest in fancy tools, get your hands dirty with a manual check-in. It helps you develop an intuitive feel for the landscape. Once a month, visit the profiles of your top 3-5 competitors and fill out a simple spreadsheet.

This doesn't need to be complicated. Create a tracker with these columns:


| Competitor | Platform | Date | Recent Win (Top Post) | Recent Miss (Low Engagement Post) | Key Takeaway/Opportunity |
|-----------------|----------|-------------|---------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| CompetitorA.com | Instagram| 09/25/2024 | Reel showing a 'Day in the Life'. 5k | Static graphic about a sale. Only 150 | Our audience loves personal, behind-the-scenes video content. |
| | | | likes, 200 comments. | likes, 2 comments. | Should we do a 'meet the team' Reel series? |
| CompetitorB.com | X (Twitter) | 09/25/2024 | Thread about a new product feature. | Single link post to a blog. 1 retweet. | High-value, educational threads work well |
| | | | 150 retweets, great feedback in replies | | for product updates, not just posting links. |


Step 3: Listen for Mentions Beyond Their Profiles

The real story isn’t always on a brand’s owned social media page, it’s in how other people are talking about them. Social listening gives you an unfiltered view.

• Use Platform Search: Regularly search platforms for your competitor's name, brand names, and branded hashtags. On X (formerly Twitter), use the Advanced Search to filter for posts with negative sentiment or questions directed at your competitor that may have gone unanswered.
• Monitor Hashtags: On Instagram and TikTok, follow key hashtags in your industry. You’ll see not only competitor posts but also how customers and other creators are talking about the space in general.
• Read Reviews & Forum Threads: Don't forget forums like Reddit or product review sites. A search for a competitor’s name on Reddit can bring up incredibly honest customer feedback and service complaints.

Step 4: Turn Your Insights Into Action

Data is pointless if you don't do anything with it. This is the most important step. As you gather information, constantly ask yourself: “So what? How can we use this?”

• Fill Documented Content Gaps: Your spreadsheet shows your competitor gets terrible engagement on static graphics but excels at video. If you’ve been relying on graphics, this is a clear sign to start planning more video content.
• Seize Engagement Opportunities: Did you see three comments on a competitor’s post asking a technical question that went unanswered for a week? That’s not just a customer service failure for them, it’s an opportunity for you to create a piece of content that answers that exact question proactively.
• Benchmark Your Performance: You can now set more realistic goals for your own social media. If your top competitor's average engagement rate on Instagram is 1.5%, aiming for 2% is a solid, data-informed goal for your brand.
• Sniff Out Future Campaigns: By keeping an eye on what they post, you might start noticing patterns. Are they posting more often about a certain product feature? Highlighting specific customer success stories? This could be a warm-up for a big new product launch or marketing campaign you can now prepare for.

Final Thoughts

Monitoring your competitors' social media offers powerful intelligence you can use to sharpen your own strategy, create more relevant content, and build a stronger community. It’s an ongoing process of observing, learning, and adapting that ensures your brand stays relevant and connected with your audience's needs.

Of course, after you've gathered all those great insights, you need an efficient way to put your own plan into action. That’s where we built Postbase to make a real difference. With our visual content calendar, you can easily plan and schedule your content weeks in advance, making sure you're filling those gaps you just identified. Plus, housing your analytics and community engagement in one place makes it so much simpler to track your performance against those benchmarks you've set, ensuring your hard work truly pays off.