There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.

~ Indira Ghandi

When it comes to competition, I know a lot of people might say ‘don’t worry about what other people are doing’.  My mom would say that.  My grade school teachers would say that.  I might even be tempted to say that if it weren’t so helpful in strategy building to know exactly what other people are doing.

I had a client recently that came to me very worried about the Facebook pages of its nearest competitors, we’ll say that this client had a diet product.  They wanted to know how each of their competitors were communicating with an audience that wanted to lose weight online so that they could build a better website and Facebook page.  They listed out each weight loss product that sold something similar to them and I took a look at their strategies – none of them were very good.

But knowing your competition isn’t just about knowing who makes the same product or offers the same service as you.  The wonderful world of the internet has made it possible to click from your site to your competitor’s to a shoe site to a site for baby pandas in about 30 seconds.

After I was finished with their strategy the competition landscape had changed completely.  The top groups talking about weight loss weren’t my client and their competitors.  It was yoga studios, The Food Network, and Special K cereal.  They had no idea that they weren’t just in the ring with competitors they knew about, they were going to have to participate with anyone having a similar conversation with their target audience.

1) Find Out Who They Are:

Who else is talking to the audience I’m targeting about the same type of ideas?

You can do a number of searches to figure this out.  Search Twitter, Search on Google, set up an alert for the topics you talk about and see who else is weighing in and how, look through Facebook, etc.  This is a better view of your landscape and will help you construct a better strategy because you will have a better idea of the conversation and who is participating.

2) Where Are They Succeeding?  Where Are They Dropping The Ball?

Sometimes, these are obvious.  Let’s take my weight loss product client again.  While most of their competitors were on Facebook and Twitter having great conversations, there were lots and lots of individuals uploading photos of their healthy meals for weight loss on Flickr, and no one was responding to these.  This is how we started to determine where there were opportunities online for my client to take the lead.

3) If You Can’t Beat Them…..

Sometimes the brands having robust conversation online won’t be competitive enough that you can’t work together.  LOTS of brands co-write blog posts, host contests, and come out with online deals together because they can better have a conversation with this audience if they do it together.

Strategy Thought: Building your strategy shouldn’t be just about keeping up with the Jones’s Facebook Page.  Determine where there is unique opportunity by finding mediums or platforms that aren’t as heavily used (Tumblr is doing VERY well with audiences but most brands haven’t jumped in here yet) but will still resonate with the audience.