There is something to be said about not comparing yourself to others, especially on social media! You see their highlight reel and not their whole lives. BUT I want to make an argument about why you should research your competition!
Why you should research
When you research your competition you get an insight into what they’re doing right, obviously. What hashtags they’re using, how they speak to their audience, and what’s working well.
However, you can also see what they’re doing wrong. You can fill in those gaps and provide a solution for your shared audience that they haven’t already provided. They could be missing a whole demographic with their practices! And YOU could fill that need! No need to copy what they’re doing.
How to research your competition
List 10 Competitive Players, what is their niche? What is their unique offering? What of their content gets the most engagement? Be specific. Is it their captions? Photo content? Quotes? What are their highlight bubbles? Do they have themes in their posting? Are they repeatedly sharing certain “stories”? What are they doing for growth? Do they use certain hashtags? What are people tagging them in? Factual posts or vulnerable posts? Value offering? What does their audience seem to want most from them?
Additional Resources
I LOVE Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller. I would totally suggest reading that, and his follow up book, Marketing made Simple.
One thing he really emphasizes is to be clear. Because your competition is not going to be clear. That in and of itself will set you apart! Notice what your competition is doing as far as mudding up their message. If you can be clear about what you offer, that will set you apart.
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