Competitior Research Using Social Media

The Need For Market Research

By now most if not all businesses are very much aware of the need for robust, regular and relevant market research that an organisation routinely conducts against a competitive landscape to more fully understand the nature of the competition they face in the market place and how their business or brand stacks up against the key rivals they are competing against. This research naturally is a direct source of information for the SWOT analysis and is the key tool from which analysis and subsequent strategy is built and refined over time.

NameChk

One of the very best tools available to all is the incredibly useful and free social media platform: NameChk found at www.nameck.com (as pictured above). This great tool allow you place the business or brand name of any rival firm or product and it will immediately highlight all the key platforms with that name that are taken or available and by inference, not being used as a current marketing platform by the competitior.

 

Brand Specific 

This of course will allow you to save a lot of time and effort by helping you to identify and focus on the key channels that are currently being used to see how the rival is using each and what strategy if any exists the various platforms for them. In the example below for Road Scholars you can clearly see the platforms that are currently being used and those that are not making it a simple task to review current activity with the social media marketing realm.

Greater Insight

Ultimately this tool will allow you to gain a greater insight into a number of key elements including:

• The likely target market the organisation or brand is primarily targeting
• The core message that they are wanting to share with their target market
• Ant secondary messages that are also being  pushed out to the market
• Target audience reactions to content and initiatives by way of comments  
• Other forms of customer engagement such as: Follows, Likes and Shares
• Range of products and services being sold
• Where relevant price points for key product lines, etc. 
  These research findings in many cases may prove to be quite revealing and contrary to what you believed to be the case as a result of shifting positioning and strategy by the rival or perhaps incomplete or flawed earlier research by your business.
  

To learn more about NameCk.com or any other aspect of social media please join me in any of the upcoming VECCI business courses with a full listing at: 
 http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/training/short-courses/marketing-sales-and-service/social-media-fundamentals

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele.