Will You be Pipped at the Post?

It’s always great to focus on your firm, your specialisations, client engagement, and growth strategies. However, it’s equally important not to lose sight of what others from your space are doing.

Even if you think you’re racing ahead of many, how do you know if someone else is nipping at your heels?

You certainly want to develop your unique differentiation, but to some extent, you still need to ‘keep up with the Jones’s’.

So how do you do that? How can you keep a close eye on the marketplace, what the competitors are doing, and what techniques and technologies they’re using which are giving their firm an edge?

The tools to use

One of the best ways of gaining insight into what the competition is doing is using all the relevant tools and resources the Internet provides.

First and foremost, Google Alerts is an essential tool for gaining insight into the competition. As crucial as it is, it’s equally effortless to use. Set  up your Google account to start using this free tool. Enter the names of your competitors to flag them, enter the industries you’re interested in, enter the specialist fields of note and you’re done. Google will start sending you emails any time your competitor’s name (or any of these subjects) is mentioned online. You can go beyond by setting up the links you prefer and specific keywords as well, so you can get notified on precisely what you want to know.

You certainly don’t have time to read everything involving your competition. It is why this tool will be perfect for saving everything for later and keeping it all organised. Instapaper is essentially a monster bookmark for web browsers. Everything you save is kept offline as well. It optimises every text for an easier read and enables you to do the same on your own. You can sync everything across devices, be it computers or smartphones.

Social media is everywhere in business, and every firm wants to know everything about it that will give them an edge over others. Everyone also wants to know what people are saying about specific brands and more. Social Mention will help you with that by enabling you to quickly search for terms, keywords, names, etc. across platforms. That way you can see what your competition is saying but also what regular people are saying about them, or you for that matter.

Sometimes tracking what your competition is doing and their mentions on social media are not enough. That’s when you should start monitoring their backlinks as well, as they play a vital role in SEO and website traffic. You can use the Monitor Backlinks tool for this.

What else can you do?

Gaining an insight into the competition and keeping up with it involves a lot more than just online tools. You can:

Using everything at your disposal is key in keeping up with everyone in your industry. You can also use the help we at the Thought Leadership Initiative can provide. We can mentor you on how to improve your marketing, gain more clients, and improve your business. All of this combined will give you a competitive edge over other firms in your sphere.

To learn more, subscribe to our blog. You won’t be bombarded – we only publish with new ideas and thoughts, not on a daily basis.

Back