Social media competitor analysis tools offer businesses a strategic advantage, allowing them to monitor what others in their industry are doing well—or poorly—so they can adjust their approach.
Complementing a competitor analysis tool with a social media scheduling tool like Hopper HQ gives you a complete hold of your social media strategy. With the power to monitor your competitors, as well as, plan, create, and schedule posts effectively, your business can stay organized, on top of trends, and ahead of the competition.
Why Should You Buy a Social Media Competitor Analysis Tools?
Here are three compelling reasons why you should integrate social media competitor analysis into your strategy:
Identify Market Trends:
By using competitor analysis tools, you gain a real-time overview of how your competitors engage with their audience. These tools reveal what’s working in your industry and help you adapt to trends faster, ensuring you’re never left behind.
Improve Your Content Strategy:
Competitor analysis tools allow you to see which types of posts are driving engagement for others in your niche. You can analyze the content that garners the most likes, shares, and comments, and apply these insights to fine-tune your own content, delivering more value to your audience.
Benchmark Your Performance:
These tools allow you to compare your social media performance with your competitors, giving you valuable metrics like follower growth, engagement rates, and post reach. This helps you set realistic benchmarks and goals for your own social media efforts.
The Top 10 Social Media Competitor Analysis Tools
1) Unmetric
Unmetric is a comprehensive social media analytics platform designed for businesses looking to benchmark their performance against competitors. This tool offers detailed insights into competitor strategies across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Using AI-driven analytics, Unmetric helps brands uncover what’s resonating with their audience and their competitors’ followers. Its powerful reporting features allow you to track key metrics such as engagement rates, response times, and content performance, all while helping you discover top-performing posts. One standout feature of Unmetric is its ability to provide predictive insights into how future posts might perform, enabling brands to make data-backed decisions before they even publish content.
By using Unmetric, brands can pinpoint the best times to post, identify content trends, and adapt their strategy based on competitive analysis. This platform is ideal for marketers focused on improving their social media ROI by learning from their competitors.
2. Klear
Klear, bought in 2021 by Meltwater, is initially known for its robust influencer marketing capabilities, also offers a powerful competitor analysis feature. It allows users to track and analyze competitors’ performance across the most popular social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.
Klear provides deep insights into follower demographics, engagement patterns, and influencer partnerships, giving businesses a full understanding of their competitors’ strategies. One of Klear’s standout features is its ability to identify competitors’ influencer partnerships, which is critical for brands looking to leverage influencer marketing and not waste time with influencers who are already partnered up.
Additionally, the tool breaks down engagement data into easy-to-understand metrics, allowing users to compare their social media presence against leaders in their industry. This tool also offers sentiment analysis, so you can see not just how much engagement a competitor’s content is generating, but also how audiences are responding emotionally. Giving a detailed picture of what works and doesn’t.
3. SEMrush
While SEMrush is predominantly known for its SEO and digital marketing capabilities, it also offers a few social media features like competitor analysis. SEMrush’s Social Media Toolkit allows users to track the performance of competitor accounts on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
What sets SEMrush apart is its holistic approach to competitive analysis; it not only tracks social metrics like engagement, follower growth, and post frequency, but it also integrates those insights with website traffic data and search engine rankings. This means you can see how your competitors’ social media performance is driving web traffic, conversions, and SEO success.
You can track up to 20 competitors and gather insights into their engagement rates, follower and subscriber counts, publication frequency, post types, and more. This tool also offers social media listening, which helps track brand mentions and competitor sentiment across your desired platforms. By combining these social and digital marketing analytics in one tool, SEMrush gives users a comprehensive understanding of how their social efforts align with their overall online presence.
4. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is knownn as a content discovery and analysis tool, to help track content engagement, trends, and identify outreach opportunities across social and search. You’ll be able to see what types of content are performing best in your industry, showing you which posts are generating the most social shares, backlinks, and engagement.
By tracking competitor content across platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Pinterest, BuzzSumo provides insight into what kind of topics, formats, and posting strategies are resonating with your target audiences. One of the platform’s standout features is its ability to identify the influencers and creators who are sharing your competitors’ content, helping you tap into the same networks or less saturated ones to help boost your reach.
Additionally, BuzzSumo offers alerts that notify you when a competitor publishes new content, allowing you to stay on top of industry trends. Its content-driven analysis makes BuzzSumo particularly useful for brands looking to refine their social media and content marketing strategies.
5. Brandwatch
Brandwatch is a leading social media platform that provides several services including in-depth competitor analysis through advanced sentiment analysis and real-time monitoring. The tool allows users to track both mentions and the moves your competitors do across multiple social media platforms, blogs, forums, and news sites.
Brandwatch’s AI-powered analytics help identify key trends and themes emerging around competitor brands, giving you a full picture of how their audiences are responding to their content and campaigns. One of the standout features of Brandwatch is its ability to segment audience data based on demographics, sentiment, and even specific interests, allowing for a deeper understanding of how different audience groups are interacting with competitors.
Additionally, Brandwatch’s visual reporting tools make it easy to compare your company’s social performance against your main competitors, highlighting where you stand in terms of engagement, reach, and overall share of voice. This tool is ideal for brands looking to go beyond simple metrics and gain deeper, more actionable insights into their competitors’ social strategies.
6. Rival IQ
Rival IQ is a social media analytics platform that focuses on tracking social media trends and strategies. It’s also well-equipped for competitor benchmarking and industry performance tracking. The tool offers detailed insights into how your competitors are performing across the social channels Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
By automating the process of finding competitors’ social media accounts and gathering insightful data like engagement rates and audience growth, Rival IQ saves businesses significant time and effort. It also provides historical data, allowing you to track changes over time and identify seasonal trends or successful campaigns that competitors are running or have run.
Rival IQ also provides hashtag analytics and sentiment analysis, helping brands understand which types of content resonate most with their audiences. It offers essential insights, suggestions, and data analysis to improve social media performance, helping marketers develop thoughtful strategies and track their effectiveness.
7. Emplifi
Emplifi, previously known as Socialbakers, offers a suite of analytics tools, including social media competitor analysis tools, that make benchmarking easier and more insightful. Known for its robust social media reporting, Socialbakers enables users to track and analyze competitors’ performance across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Emplifi provides real-time social insights by sharing social posts across various platforms, helping brands stay updated on emerging trends and competitive movements. You’ll be able to compare the performance of your profiles with those of your competitors using key metrics like engagement rates, follower growth, and post reach across channels your desired channels.
You can also analyze paid social media campaigns, making it easy to track competitors’ paid and organic social strategies side by side. This tool is particularly useful for large-scale enterprises with complex social media strategies who want to track the effectiveness of competitors’ ads and organic content, allowing brands to optimize their campaigns more effectively.
8. Phlanx
Phlanx is mostly known for its influencer marketing features, but it also offers a useful engagement calculator that can be leveraged for competitor analysis. You can gather data for YouTube, Twitter/X, Instagram, and Twitch with insights into post performance and more for each competitor. There is a limited set of insights that are free, but most features require a paid account.
By tracking key metrics such as follower count, engagement rates, and post frequency, Phlanx helps brands compare their social performance with competitors across Instagram, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, and Twitter. Its engagement calculator allows users to see how their competitors’ engagement metrics stack up, providing valuable insights into how your target audiences interact with competitor content.
Phlanx also provides a tool to track and analyze brand collaborations and influencer partnerships, giving you the chance to look into how your competitors are leveraging influencers in their campaigns. This feature is particularly beneficial for businesses that rely heavily on influencer marketing as part of their social media strategy.
9. NetBase Quid
NetBase Quid is a consumer and market intelligence platform that provides real-time social analytics and competitor tracking through advanced AI and natural language processing. Businesses can monitor competitors’ social media presence and track public sentiment across multiple channels, including blogs, forums, and news sites.
NetBase Quid goes beyond simply tracking mentions and engagement; it also provides a detailed breakdown of sentiment, showing how competitors are perceived by their audience. With NetBase Quid you can monitor your competitors’ activities and strategies. This is done by analyzing competitor mentions, sentiment, and engagement, companies can benchmark their performance and uncover potential areas for improvement.
NetBase Quid’s reporting capabilities also include visual representations of competitive positioning, helping brands identify market gaps and areas of opportunity. This tool is ideal for brands that want a 360-degree view of their competitors’ social presence combined with deeper audience insights and market trends.
10. Talkwalker
Talkwalker is a leading social media analytics tool that helps businesses with analytics, social listening, and influencer marketing. It allows you to identify business opportunities, analyze what your competitors are doing, and monitor your marketing initiatives.
This tool can help brands identify key trends and discussions around competitor content, revealing valuable data about what’s driving engagement and sentiment. Talkwalker’s customizable dashboards allow users to track competitors’ social performance in real-time, tracking critical metrics like share of voice, audience sentiment, and overall brand health.
Talkwalker’s image recognition technology can track visual mentions of competitor logos or products, offering a deeper understanding of how competitors’ brand assets are being used and perceived across social channels. For brands seeking comprehensive social listening and competitor insights, Talkwalker is a must-have tool.
The Top 5 Free Social Media Competitor Analysis Tools
For businesses on a budget and may not be able to afford the tools mentioned above, here are a few free alternative tools you can consider.
1) Social Searcher:
This is a tool designed to track brand mentions across various popular social media platforms as well as non-social sources like blogs and websites. With this tool, you’ll be able to search for mentions of your own brand or those of your competitors as well as analyze basic sentiment. However, its capabilities are somewhat limited compared to premium tools, making it best suited for small businesses or startups that want basic competitor monitoring without a high price tag.
2) Followerwonk:
A Twitter analytics tool that helps you explore your competitors’ Twitter followers and identify engagement patterns. One of its strongest features is its competitor analysis feature. This tool helps users compare social authority, track follower growth, and even identify the time of day when competitors’ followers are most active. Moreover, the tool offers insights into follower bio keywords and locations, allowing brands to adjust their content and targeting strategies accordingly.
3) Google Alerts:
While not specifically designed for social media, Google Alerts can notify you whenever your competitors are mentioned online, including on social platforms, blogs, forums, and news sites. Users can set up customized alerts based on competitors’ brand names, product names, or industry-related keywords, and receive email notifications whenever new content is published that matches the criteria.
Although Google Alerts doesn’t offer the in-depth metrics found in dedicated social media competitor analysis tools, it’s valuable for keeping track of overall brand visibility, online reputation, and competitor activities.
4) Quick Search (by Talkwalker):
Quick Search is the free version of Talkwalker’s powerful social listening platform. This tool allows users to quickly search for mentions of competitors across social media, blogs, news sites, and forums. Quick Search provides an easy-to-use dashboard for monitoring brand mentions, hashtags, and industry trends in real time, giving users a snapshot of competitors’ online presence.
In addition to tracking mentions, Quick Search allows users to identify trending topics and measure brand sentiment, helping you understand how your competitors are perceived by the public. Its visual representation of data, including word clouds and engagement graphs, offers quick insights into key areas of interest.
5) Sociograph:
This is a free tool designed specifically for analyzing Facebook pages. It provides in-depth insights into competitor posts, including engagement metrics such as likes, shares, and comments. With Sociograph, users can compare their own Facebook performance with that of competitors, identifying which of their content generates the most engagement and in turn using it for their own profiles.
One of Sociograph’s notable features is its ability to generate detailed reports on engagement metrics for competitor pages, offering insights into what kind of content works best. The tool also provides historical data on post-performance, allowing users to analyze content strategies over time.
Why Use Hopper HQ with a Social Media Competitor Analysis Tool?
While competitor analysis tools help you monitor what’s working in your industry, combining that information with a scheduling tool like Hopper HQ amplifies your effectiveness. Here’s why:
1) Strategize and Schedule Ahead: Once you’ve identified what’s working for your competitors, Hopper HQ allows you to plan and schedule similar types of content in advance. You won’t need to scramble to respond to trends in real time because your posts will already be queued up.
2) Maximize Engagement Times: By using insights from competitor tools, you can identify peak engagement times. With Hopper HQ’s advanced scheduling features, you can ensure your posts go live when your audience is most active, increasing visibility.
3) Consistency is Key: One of the best ways to stay competitive is through consistent posting. Hopper HQ enables you to keep a steady stream of content going, ensuring you never miss an opportunity to engage with your audience while tracking your competitors.
Conclusion
Incorporating social media competitor analysis tools into your strategy provides a comprehensive view of the social media landscape, allowing you to benchmark your performance, adapt to market trends, and enhance your content strategy. Combining these tools with a robust scheduling platform like Hopper HQ allows you to streamline your efforts and maintain a consistent, effective presence online.
Ready to take your social media game to the next level? Try Hopper HQ for free today and see how pairing it with a competitor analysis tool can transform your strategy.
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