I mainly spy on my competitors to learn from them but you may have other reasons to do it. In any case here are 4 simple ways you can use to spy on your competition easily.
1 – Facebook Interest Lists
Facebook Interest lists are an optional way to organize and view the content you’re interested in on Facebook. You can create your own interest lists based on the things you care about, or follow other people’s lists. e.g.
– If you are a local furniture store owner, you can add Facebook pages of Ikea, Home Depot and other competitors in one list.
– If you are working on a mobile app, you can add Facebook pages of your existing competitors in one Facebook list.
To learn more about Facebook lists click here!
2 – Twitter Lists
Twitter lists are fairly similar to Facebook interest lists. According to Twitter, a list is a curated group of Twitter users. You can create your own lists or subscribe to lists created by others. Viewing a list timeline will show you a stream of Tweets from only the users on that list. You can add all of your known competitors in one list and watch their activities.
For example, here is a Twitter list of social media stars published by Mari Smith. If you are starting out in social media world, you can learn a lot from this list.
To learn more about Twitter lists start here!
3 – Google Alerts
Google Alerts is one of Google’s hidden gems. It’s a really powerful tool to keep track of trends, interesting topics, competitors or anything really new that appears on the internet.
For example, If you are starting a new co-working space in Dallas, The DEC, The Grove, Nod & Addison Treehouse could be your competition. You can set up Google Alerts on their names to get the latest news in your inbox.
To start creating Google Alerts, click here!
4 – Email Subscription
Oh Yes – you can subscribe to your competitor’s email list and have everything sent to your email box. How simple?
So now over to you. How do you spy on your competition ? Do you even worry about it ?