Guide6 min read

How to Do Competitor Analysis on Social Media: A Step-by-Step Guide and Template

Competitor analysis often stops at watching what competitors post: how many posts, how many followers, which campaign.

That information is useful but incomplete. The real question is what the audience says about competitors, and how that compares with your brand.

What Is Competitor Analysis?

Competitor analysis on social media compares, with the same measures, how your brand and your competitors appear in digital media, how they are discussed and which topics they own.

It has two layers:

The competitor's own accounts: How often they post, which content gets engagement and which campaigns they run.
The conversation about the competitor: What users, the press and influential accounts say about them; what they criticize and what they praise.

The second layer is usually more valuable, because it shows what the audience actually thinks rather than what the competitor says about itself.

Competitor Analysis, Step by Step

Step 1

Define your competitors

Direct competitors (same product, same audience) and indirect ones (a different solution to the same need). Three to five competitors are enough to start.

Step 2

Use the same period and sources

A comparison only makes sense over the same date range and the same channels.

Step 3

Compare conversation volume

Who is talked about more? Where does the volume come from: news, social media or complaint sites?

Step 4

Compare tone

How much of the conversation is supportive, neutral or critical?

Step 5

Map topic ownership

Price, speed, quality, customer service: which topic is associated with which brand?

Step 6

Find what criticism targets

The topics where competitors are criticized most can be your fastest opportunity.

Step 7

Look at influencers

Who drives the conversation about competitors? Do the same people talk about you?

Step 8

Track change

Build a picture that changes month by month instead of a one-off snapshot.

Competitor Analysis Template

Put the rows below in a table and add one column per brand. Put your own brand in the first column.

Conversation volume: Number of items about the brand in the period, and the change against the previous period.
Channel mix: The share of conversation across news, social media, forums and complaint sites.
Tone: The share of supportive, neutral and critical content.
Top topics: The three most discussed topics and the tone of each.
Criticism target: Where criticism is aimed most: product, price, delivery, customer service.
Influencers: The accounts driving the conversation, and their stance.
Campaigns: Campaigns in the period and how they were received.
Crises and events: Unusual spikes and the events behind them.

Every row must use the same measure for every brand. If you count only X for one brand and every channel for another, the comparison misleads.

Two Core Metrics in Competitor Analysis

Most rows in the template rely on two core metrics:

Share of voice = The brand's conversation volume ÷ Total conversation volume of all compared brands × 100

Net stance = Share of supportive content − Share of critical content

Share of voice shows how much of the total conversation a brand gets in the same period and sources. Net stance ranges from −100 to +100; above zero means support leads, below zero means criticism leads.

Read the two together. Being talked about a lot is not always good; the direction of the conversation matters too.

Example Scenario: Brand A and Brand B

Take two e-commerce brands selling in the same category. Over one month, 12,000 items are published about Brand A and 8,000 about Brand B. Share of voice is then 60% for Brand A and 40% for Brand B.

Say 25% of the content about Brand A is supportive and 45% is critical: its net stance is −20. For Brand B the shares are 35% and 30%: its net stance is +5.

At first glance Brand A looks ahead because it is talked about more. But most of that conversation is critical. Looking at what the criticism targets, delivery delays may lead for Brand A and prices for Brand B.

That picture shows a clear opportunity for Brand B: a message built on delivery speed speaks exactly where the competitor is weak. For Brand A, fixing delivery first and then increasing visibility is the better order.

How Often Should You Run Competitor Analysis?

Monthly: A regular comparison to see the overall trend and changes in positioning.
Weekly during campaigns: To compare your campaign and competitor campaigns over the same period.
Daily during a crisis: A competitor's crisis can affect how the whole industry is perceived; track whether the conversation spills over to you.
Yearly: A summary of how positioning has changed over the long term.

Common Mistakes

Comparing follower counts only.
Looking at a competitor's own accounts and skipping the conversation about it.
Comparing different periods or different sources.
Measuring volume without filtering out bot accounts and duplicate content.
Running a one-off analysis and not tracking change.

Where Does Competitor Data Come From?

Competitors' own accounts: Posting frequency, content types and engagement.
Social media conversations: Posts and comments mentioning the competitor's name, products and campaign hashtags.
News and columns: How the press covers the competitor and its place on the agenda.
Complaint and review sites: The most direct feedback on customer experience.
Forums: Product comparisons and long experience reports.

Use the same sources for every brand. Counting complaint sites for one competitor and not for another is the mistake that misleads a comparison the most.

How to Present Findings to Management

However detailed the analysis, the summary for management should be short. One page with these is enough:

Share of voice and net stance compared across brands.
The top three topics for each brand.
The most important change in this period.
One or two recommended steps.

Details can go in an appendix. What matters to management is the direction of change and the recommended decision.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many competitors should you analyze?: Three to five is enough to start. Too many makes the comparison hard to read; too few leaves the industry picture incomplete.
Is competitor analysis the same as market research?: No. Market research studies the audience's needs and the structure of the market; competitor analysis compares how brands in that market are positioned and perceived. The two complement each other.
Do follower counts matter in competitor analysis?: They can be one indicator, but they mislead on their own. Follower count shows potential reach, not visibility, and fake followers can inflate it.
How do you build a competitor analysis template?: A spreadsheet is enough at a small scale. As the number of brands and sources grows, social media analytics tools are used to collect data with the same measures and to filter out bot accounts and duplicate content.
Should you look at competitors' own posts or at the conversation about them?: Both. A competitor's posts show what it wants to say; the conversation about it shows how that is received. The second is usually more valuable for decisions.

From Competitor Analysis to Decisions

Good competitor analysis does not end on a report page. It answers these questions:

Where are we ahead of competitors, and how do we protect it?
Which topic, where competitors are criticized, is an opportunity?
Where are we criticized while competitors are not?
Which competitor campaigns actually resonated?

Competitor analysis is not about copying competitors; it is about seeing the gap the audience is looking for and nobody fully fills.