Should Businesses Spy on Their Competition? Definitely.
While many local businesses are worried about taking on the “big dogs” in their industries, it’s really the smaller businesses that can do them harm. With over 28 million small businesses in America, the real competition is on Main Street – not Wall Street. If you’re marketing is better, though, you’ll usually come out on top. Of course, if you’re not spying on your competition, you’ll never know.
Pick Up Great Content Ideas
Whenever your competitors create new content – whether it’s an infographic or blog – you can bet that they’ll post it to social media. Once there, you can monitor the engagement on the content. If a particular post gets tons of comments, likes or shares, you know that your potential customers are interested in said content. You certainly don’t want to copy something verbatim, but it never hurts to create similar content that could perform even better.
Take Note of Emerging Trends
Regardless of what industry you’re in, you hope that you’re always on the forefront of emerging trends. Unfortunately, no one can always be the first to the punch. By monitoring your competitors’ social media strategies and other marketing techniques, you can recognize potential emerging trends that you may have otherwise missed out on. You might not be the first to catch onto these industry changes, but if you’re watching your competition, you’ll never be far behind.
Find the Right People for PR
Getting great public relations exposure in industry blogs or local news can be good for your company, but finding the people who actually want to put out this type of information can be difficult. If you set up Google Alerts – or use similar tools – for your competitors, you will be notified whenever they’re mentioned in the news or blog posts. You will then know the names of publications and authors who are actually willing to put out your industry’s news, and you can reach out to these individuals and start building relationships.
To spy on your competitors may seem shady, but you can rest assured that they’re already keeping tabs on you. If you’re not doing the same, you’ll consistently fall behind in your race to the top.
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