Watching Your Back:Competitive Analysis in Social Media

Joe VargoInteractive Marketing Strategist

Experience Columbus@Joe_ExpCols

What is Competitive Analysis?

• A process to benchmark your progress against a standard other than your past progress

• An honest accounting of your performance compared to that of your competition

• A way to gain market insights

Why Is Competitive Analysis Important?

Checking in on your competition can give you insight into: • Who their audiences are• Their areas of product strength and weakness• The passion of their audiences for their brand• Successful and unsuccessful tactics

You may be improving month-over-month, but that’s not enough to demonstrate successResults help you make a case to your CEO and Board for:• Increased budgets and staff• A believable reporting of your success

Who Is My Competition?

If your set is not already identified, you can select a set based on:• Businesses/DMOs your sales team routinely competes against for meetings• Businesses/destinations in your geographic region of similar size • Businesses/destinations on a broader scale that serve a similar audience

Don’t forget to:• Get buy-in on the list from your CEO and Board• Watch businesses/DMOs aspirationally

What to Measure

• YouTube• Pinterest• Instagram

Platforms and social channels you’re active on, and others that are commonly used in your industry.• Blogs• Facebook• Twitter

Community size is helpful to track, but interactions are more meaningful to report

Staff deployment and budgets

How to Measure: Blogs

Difficult to be objective and most traffic comparing sites don’t catalog blogs of this size – enlist non-biased help

Quality:Is the content visually appealing? Large blocks of text or long lists of events?Typos and other errors?Does the content inspire you to travel? * Most important

Frequency: How many posts per week?Consistent over the past three months?

Voice:Is the content authentic?Are there authors’ names attached? Are they all employees?

How to Measure: Facebook

All data you need are publically available within Facebook

• Number of fans• Growth in fans over time• Number talking about * Most important • Percentage of fans talking about • Any interesting tabs, promos, etc.

How to Measure: Twitter

Interaction data are harder to come by and you need a third-party tool to measure effectively

• Number of followers• Growth in followers• Interaction (Retweets, mentions and favorites)* Most

important• Topics, frequency, voice

How to Measure: YouTube

YouTube provides publically accessible viewer data under “About”

• Lifetime total views• New videos• Growth in views over time * Most important• Themes of new videos• New subscribers

How to Measure: Instagram

There aren’t great competitive analysis tools for Instagram yet, except a calculator

• Number of followers• Growth in followers over time• Interactions (likes and comments) * Most important• Average interactions per photo posted• Content and perspective of photos

How to Measure: Pinterest

There has been consolidation in Pinterest metrics sites, and there is no good competitive tool

• Number of followers• Growth in followers over time• Growth in pins• Interactions (favorites, comments, repins) * Most important

How Do I Report My Findings

• A defensible, written report detailing your methodology is important

• An infographic with pared down data in chart form makes it easy to understand for those not versed in social media

• Be brutally honest – this process is useless if you aren’t

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%Growth in Fans since August 2012

Charlotte

Cincinnati

Clevela

nd

Columbus

Detroit

Indianap

olis

Kansas

City

Louisv

ille

Milwau

kee

Minneapolis

Nashvil

le

Pittsburgh

St. Lo

uis0.00%4.00%8.00%

12.00%16.00%

% of Fans Interacting

How Do I Report My Findings

• Don’t forget to include anecdotes and best practices from the best of your competition

• Create a top-line report to share with all your stakeholders

• Create a detailed report for your internal team• Frequency: 2-4 times/year• Budget 1 day of time per analysis