Twitter Competitor Analysis: How to Track Competitors on Twitter in 2023?

By 2028, Twitter is estimated to reach over 652 million users. That’s a lot of potential business you could secure. It’s also a lot of competition for prospects to wade through to find your business.

So, how can you stand out on Twitter?

What you need is a Twitter competitor analysis that can help your business stand out on the platform.

By analyzing your competitors’ strategies, you can gain valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t, identify gaps in the market, and refine your own tactics to stay ahead of the game.

This blog will discuss how to effectively track your competitors on Twitter and leverage that information to improve your social media presence.

What Is a Twitter Competitor Analysis?

Simply put, a Twitter competitor analysis involves checking what your competition is doing on social media.

Monitoring what your competitors post, the frequency and types of content, and how much engagement they achieve give you a useful benchmark.

Some metrics to analyze include:

• Number of daily tweets
• Total follower count
• Growth rate
• Engagement rate (likes, replies, retweets, quoted tweets, and shares)
• Impressions

Tracking this competitor data will help you to understand your company’s position on Twitter and how to improve your marketing strategy.

Why Run a Twitter Competitor Analysis?

As with any competitor analysis, tracking competitors on Twitter has numerous benefits. Here are some of the most critical ways it can help your business.

1. Be Aware of Industry Trends

Twitter is incredible for offering a quick insight into trends. This allows you to stay on top of what’s happening in your industry.

Knowing such trends is important to understand your target audience and establish your business as a market leader.

For instance, it’s crucial to be aware of any collaborations your competitors may have with influencers or celebrities. This may entice you to explore influencer marketing as part of your strategy, which could expand your reach and increase engagement.

2. Identify Content Gaps

Reviewing your competitors’ social media activities, you can become aware of potential gaps in your content marketing. For example, maybe your competitor is generating a lot of insight from Twitter polls. This strategy might be something to consider for your company, too.

3. Improve Paid Content

Tracking your Twitter competition can be particularly helpful in improving your paid content strategy on the platform. This is especially vital as you want the best ROI possible.

Once you’ve gathered insights, you can incorporate them into your paid ad campaigns. From there, test different ad formats, messaging, and targeting to see what works best for your audience.

4. Establishes a Baseline

Tracking your competitors’ Twitter activities allows you to dive into how often they tweet and reply to their followers, whether they’re implementing various content lengths, and who they’re interacting with.

Use the data from your analysis to recreate them in your company’s Twitter marketing strategy. Remember to A/B test to analyze your success rate.

5. Sets KPI Expectations

Monitoring your competitors’ Twitter performance tells you, reasonably accurately, the number of accounts that are interested in your business’s services or products. For example, analyzing your competitors’ followers will inform you of the size of your potential customer base.

How Do I Find My Competitors on Twitter?

Now that you understand the benefits of conducting a competitor analysis, you’re probably thinking, ‘This is all well and good, but how do I track down my competitors on Twitter?’

1. Use Google

Starting with a simple approach, turn to Google to find your Twitter competitors and thoroughly search keywords your business ranks for. The results that include organic searches and top-paid ads are worth exploring on Twitter. From there, follow the links to their Twitter profiles.

2. Explore Mutual Hashtags

Naturally, you and your competitors will have some hashtags in common, specifically words or phrases relevant to your industry or niche. By identifying and exploring mutual hashtags, you’ll be able to discover additional competitors and see what topics they’re discussing with their followers.

You can also use these hashtags to discover relevant Twitter communities you might want to join.

3. View Twitter Analytics

Your Twitter analytics dashboard is a goldmine of information. View your top followers and their connections to start uncovering who’s taking their business marketing on Twitter seriously – they are your main competition.

4. Twitter Advanced Search

Twitter’s advanced search makes it easier to filter your search by everything from dates to people and phrases. So it’s ideal for finding brands and brand mentions.

Start on the Twitter website by searching in the search bar. When results appear, click the three dots and select Advanced Search. Next, view the filters using the relevant keywords to find what you’re searching for. You can also refine your search by excluding irrelevant hashtags.

5. Analyze Your Followers

Analyzing your followers and their followers can provide valuable insights into your competitors and their followers.

By understanding the accounts your followers are also following, you can get a sense of the types of content and accounts that are popular in your industry. This information can help you identify potential competitors and opportunities to collaborate with other accounts.

Additionally, analyzing your competitors’ followers can provide insight into their target audience, which can help you refine your target audience and marketing strategy.

How to Analyze Your Twitter Competition

With thousands of Tweets sent out every second, tracking competitors on Twitter requires organization and research.

But don’t panic!

By planning and monitoring your progress throughout, you can easily conduct an analysis that will help you grow.

1. Create a List

Making a Twitter list is your first step. Luckily, Twitter is eager to guide you through this process.

Start by selecting the private list option, then adding the competitors you’ve identified. You can group your Twitter competitors for simple segmentation purposes.

2. Monitor Competitors’ Replies

Next, check how, when, and the style in which your competitors are replying to their audience.

Look for how prompt their replies are, whether they’re monitoring mentions, and if they’re using automatic, templated replies or coming up with unique responses.

You can also uncover what their customers are discussing about your competition. Is the overarching theme one of the complaints? Or are they generally happy campers?

You will likely unearth information that can positively impact your Twitter strategy and refine your business’s USPs. To streamline this process, it’s worth setting up a competitor monitoring search with a third-party analysis tool like SocialPilot or directly in your Twitter or Tweetdeck panel.

3. Analyze Their Ads

Keep an eye on any paid Twitter advertising campaigns your competition is running to understand the types of ads that work well for them.

Look specifically for their ad formats – for example, promoted tweets, promoted accounts, or promoted trends. Are they using video ads, image ads, or text ads? Take note of what seems to be working best, and consider testing similar ad formats in your own campaigns.

In addition, explore the messaging and targeting criteria they’ve selected for their ads to identify gaps and opportunities in your own Twitter ad campaigns.

4. Track the Right Metrics

You must focus on the right metrics for the most effective Twitter competitor analysis. Some of the most fruitful metrics include:

• Engagement: Total number of times a user interacts with a tweet
• Engagement rate: Percentage of followers who actively engage with tweets (likes, retweets, replies, and clicks)
• Follower growth: Analysis of the number of new followers
• Mentions: Who has mentioned your page or your competitor’s
• Tweets by type: Which type of content generates the most engagement (text, quote, retweets, replies, video, GIFs, polls, etc.)
• Timing: Specific timeline of tweets
• Top hashtags: Your competitors’ most-used hashtags
• Profile views: How many accounts are viewing your competitor’s profile

We get it.

All of this planning, monitoring, and tracking can be quite time-consuming. If you don’t have the time or resources to conduct a detailed competitor analysis or want to outsource the work, consider hiring an external consultant.

Don’t forget to create a personalized consulting proposal template word document if you decide to go this route.

Mastering Your Twitter Competitor Strategy

Some of the best Twitter engagement strategies come from analyzing your main competitors in the industry. After all, if their strategies are successful, they’ll likely work for your business, too.

By identifying your competitors, analyzing their activity, and understanding their strengths and weaknesses, you can develop a plan to showcase your organization on Twitter.

You can implement several approaches. Whether creating unique content, engaging with your audience, or collaborating with others in your niche, a well-informed Twitter strategy can help you succeed on this popular social media platform.

Remember to keep your business’s goals and target audience in mind, and consistently monitor and adjust your strategy to stay ahead of the competition.