As a business owner, it’s important to keep an eye on your competitors and see how they are engaging with their audiences on social media. Facebook in particular has become a key platform for brands to connect with customers and promote their products and services. When used effectively, Facebook can help drive website traffic, increase sales, and boost brand awareness. Monitoring your competitors’ Facebook activity can provide useful insights into their social media strategy and success.
Why you should monitor competitors on Facebook
Here are some of the key reasons to check out what your competitors are doing on Facebook:
- See what kind of content resonates with their followers – This can help you identify content formats and topics that also appeal to your shared target audience.
- Learn what engages their followers – Look at the types of posts, images, videos that get high engagement. This can help guide your own posting strategy.
- Discover potential partnership opportunities – Your competitors’ followers may also be interested in your brand. Seeing what interests them can reveal partnership potential.
- Get product launch intel – By seeing when competitors release new products on Facebook, you can prepare your own launch strategy.
- Monitor their ad strategy – Check out the types of ads competitors are running on Facebook to get ideas for your own Facebook ad approach.
Essentially, keeping an eye on competitors gives you valuable market and audience insights that can inform your own Facebook and social media strategy. You can learn from what your competitors are doing well and opportunities where you can do better.
How to see competitors’ Facebook engagement
So how can you actually monitor competitors’ Facebook activity and engagement? Here are some tips:
Like/follow their Facebook Page
The first step is to actually connect with your competitors’ Facebook Pages by liking and following them. This ensures their public Page posts will show up in your regular Facebook News Feed. Pay attention to the types of posts showing up in your feed and how fans are reacting to them.
Check their Facebook Insights
Facebook Pages include publicly viewable Facebook Insights that show engagement metrics. In their Page profile, scroll down and click “Insights” on the left sidebar. Here you can see stats like their follower growth, post reach, and engagement rate over time. Look for trends in when engagement spikes or drops off.
Use Facebook’s Ad Library
To view competitors’ Facebook ads, go to Facebook’s Ad Library. Search for your competitor Pages and you can see ads they are currently running. Look at ad copy, creatives, audiences targeted, and performance data.
Use social media listening tools
Social media monitoring tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Brandwatch allow you to search across Facebook for mentions of competitors. You can see when competitors are mentioned by fans and influencers. Social listening gives you broader insights beyond competitors’ owned channels.
Check their Facebook analytics
Facebook analytics tools like Fanpage Karma allow you to enter a competitors’ Page and view analytics like post engagement rates, response rates, and optimal posting times. These tools give you in-depth data to inform your own Facebook strategy.
Search Facebook hashtags
See what branded hashtags competitors are using to promote content and engage followers. Searching these tags on Facebook allows you to see what types of content is resonating for their audiences.
Use Facebook Analytics
Your own Facebook Analytics dashboard provides an “Audience Overlap” section showing Pages your own followers also follow. You can likely find competitor Pages listed here to track overlap and relationships.
Join industry/niche Facebook Groups
By joining Facebook Groups related to your industry or niche, you can network with competitors’ target audiences. Pay attention to Group comments and discussions competitors are part of.
Facebook metrics to track for competitors
When monitoring competitors on Facebook, keep an eye on these key engagement metrics:
- Follower count – Steady follower growth indicates strong social media marketing.
- Engagement rate – Calculate by dividing engagements by reach. High rates mean quality engagement.
- Click-through rate – Ratio of link clicks to post reach. Shows content quality and targeting.
- Video views – High view counts signal content resonating with audiences.
- Comments – Lots of comments indicate an engaged community around posts.
- Shares – Content shared frequently suggests highly engaging content.
Use the Facebook Insights analytics of competitors to track these metrics over time. See when they are improving or declining month-over-month.
Tips for analyzing competitors on Facebook
Here are some top tips for effectively monitoring and learning from competitors on Facebook:
- Check in regularly – Add it to your weekly social media tasks
- Leverage tools like Hootsuite to streamline tracking
- Pay attention to both past and emerging trends
- Document what content gets the most reach and engagement
- Highlight tactics that align with your brand and goals
- Don’t completely copy what competitors do – Put your unique spin
- Share findings regularly with your marketing team
The goal is to use competitors’ Facebook activity as inspiration to improve your own efforts. Regular monitoring, measurement, and reporting ensures everyone on your team learns what is working in your niche.
Ways to outperform competitors on Facebook
Once you’ve done thorough competitor research on Facebook, here are some ways to use those learnings to overtake their performance:
Offer more value to fans
Consider how you can better educate, entertain, and engage fans through your content. Develop a robust content calendar with high value posts spread throughout the week.
Focus more on video
If you notice competitors getting great traction with video, create engaging video content for Facebook. Short videos can educate and grab attention.
Tap into user-generated content
Consumers trust fellow consumers. Running promotions to get users sharing their content and experiences with your brand can help boost reach and engagement.
Experiment with different formats
Don’t just mimic competitors. Try different kinds of posts like Live videos, AMAs, polls and see what your audience responds to best.
Engage followers and influencers
Go beyond just pushing your own content. Engage audience by responding to comments, sharing user photos, etc. Partner with influencers to expand reach.
Optimizing based on competitors’ performance
Here are some ways to use what you learn from competitors to optimize your own Facebook marketing tactics and strategy:
Fine-tune targeting
Look at audiences and demographics competitors are targeting successfully. Test targeting your content to those same segments.
Improve organic reach
Analyze when competitors see engagement spikes and what type of content drives it. Replicate their success.
Enhance paid ads
Review creatives, messaging, and placements of competitors’ paid ads. Optimize your ads accordingly.
Align posting cadence
If you see competitors get great traction posting 2x per day, increase your own posting frequency. Post when competitors are less active.
Choose winning formats
Lean into formats competitors are having success with – video, live, Stories, etc. Make those formats central to your strategy.
Partner with influencers
Research influencers your competitors are partnering with for promotions. Consider your own influencer campaigns.
Top Facebook tools for monitoring competitors
Here is a quick overview of some of the top tools for tracking competitors on Facebook:
Social Insider
- Enter competitors’ Page names
- Get data on followers, engagement, sentiment, and more
- Pricing starts at $29/month
Quintly
- Full suite social media analytics platform
- Compare competitors across 10+ Facebook metrics
- 14-day free trial, then $99-$899/month
Talkwalker
- Social media monitoring across platforms
- Real-time alerts on competitor activity
- Free and paid plans from $500/month
BuzzSumo
- Enter competitor names/keywords to analyze performance
- View competitors’ top engaging content
- Plans $99-$349/month
The tools provide easy ways to regularly monitor key competitors in one dashboard. Most offer free trials so you can test out features.
Advice for tracking competitors ethically
When researching competitors’ social media activity, be sure to do so ethically. Avoid the following:
- Hacking into competitors’ accounts or private data
- Making fake accounts pretending to be competitors
- Copying competitors’ content entirely
- Sharing competitors confidential company information
The goal is simply to learn from their public social media presence. Be sure to ultimately use the knowledge to create unique content optimized for your own brand and audience.
Conclusion
Monitoring competitors’ Facebook activity provides invaluable insights that can guide your own social media efforts. But don’t just copy them entirely – put your unique spin on the tactics and strategies that seem to resonate best with your shared audiences. With regular competitive research and optimization, you can fine-tune your Facebook presence to stand out and succeed.