Nowadays, it is a companys ability to track, monitor, and engage on various social media platforms which will help determine success. You need to use both measurable and written marketing analysis to be informed about key areas of your competition.  Visualizing Porters five-forces model for analyzing industry profitability as discussed in this module, focus on the following points:

Platforms: Have a look to see if your competition only uses the social media standbys of Facebook and Twitter, or if they use other slightly more niche social media platforms. For example: LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, Instagram, and others. Also, see if they engage more often or more effectively on one platform in particular.
Frequency:How often do your competitors share posts? What kinds of posts (videos, images, text only)? What time of day are they posting?
Following:You want to look at the overall number of followers for your top competitors, and its not a bad idea to check back over time, to give you more insight into your competitors strategy, how well it works, and if their audience is growing. You can use the tools Tweepi (Links to an external site.) and Follower Wonk (Links to an external site.) to analyze your competitors on Twitter in more depth. (Note for BUS 460: do not pay to sign up for these tools).
Content: Notice if your competitors are promoting their own content offers and articles or if they are giving equal play to other content creators that are in the industry. Also see if they are aiming content to the personalities of buyers or if they are sharing items that dont really fit their profile; this will help better position your own content to be as relevant as possible for your user base.
Response time:How are your competitors responding to customer questions or concerns on social media?  Quick responses are important to consumers, so a company that halts responding after 5pm isnt in the best position. Aim to provide better customer service than your competitors on social. Credit to  Julie Petersen from her article 10 Ways to find out what your competitors are doing. https://articles.bplans.com/10-ways-to-find-out-what-your-competitors-are-doing/

Assignment Instructions
For this exercise. you have been assigned the task of reporting back to the manager what the competition is doing.  Although a fictitious scenario, this does takes place in the real world and a great exercise to conduct since it can all be done online! Choose the industry you have a passion about (i.e. fashion, sports, hospitality, entertainment, food, beverage, etc.) and select a few of the competitors in that industry.  If you are actually working in the industry you have an invested interest in, then you can use the perspective from the actual company or organization where you work.

To reiterate the concept of Cost Leadership, by Michael Porter, in this module, this strategy describes a way to establish the competitive advantage. Cost leadership, in basic terms, is the lowest cost of operation in the industry. Because of the lower costs, companies are able to charge a lower price for its products and still make an adequate profit. While this can be highly successful, cost leadership may be strenuous to employ.

Researching competitors in your industry may be easier than you think.  For instance, you can read their online material, or even buy their products and services to compare them with your own. Overall, you should analyze what they may do better than you. Questions you can ask yourself about the competition:

What is the price range of their product or service?
Are their products of a high quality? Provide an example.
Should the company differentiate its products or services on something other than cost, such as service or quality?
How is their customer service (highly regarded or less than satisfactory? You can usually see this as well from feedback or posts online.
Is their marketing material more engaging?
Should the company focus on a niche with a less sought-after segment of the market that could be profitable, or compete with the major competitors for the biggest and most sought after market share?
Remember, what goes online stays online, and a response to posts on social media should positively reflect the mission and values of the company. See what you can find about your competitors responses where applicable. 

Instructions: Using the five points of Platform, Frequency, Following, Content, and Response time, investigate how the competition is conducting themselves online and report back to the team and manager of your company how the competition is doing.