Quick answer: Social media competitor analysis is the process of studying what rival brands post, how often, in which formats and with what response, then using the gaps to plan your own content. Pick five to ten competitors, collect public data, compare themes and engagement, find what they skipped, and turn it into a 30-day plan.
Key facts
- We recommend a competitor set of five to ten brands, split between direct, indirect and aspirational rivals.
- Public engagement rate is usually calculated as (likes + comments) ÷ followers × 100, because rivals' reach is private.
- A free LinkedIn Page can track one competitor in its analytics, and a Premium Page up to nine.
- LinkedIn's competitor view lists trending competitor posts from the past 30 days, refreshed daily.
- X's automation rules prohibit scraping and browser automation, so collect data by hand or with permitted tools.
- Publiqa's Competitor Radar shows a rival page's core pitch, its unaddressed gaps and three to five counter-angles.
What is a social media competitor analysis?
Most competitor analyses die in a spreadsheet nobody opens. They list followers, paste a few screenshots and stop. A useful one answers decisions you have to make this month.
A social media competitor analysis is a structured review of rival accounts on the networks that matter to your audience. It has four jobs. It tells you where competitors are active, what they talk about, how their audience responds, and what they have not covered. Competitor analysis for social media should end in a content plan, not a slide deck.
Use the four questions below to keep the work honest:
- Where do they show up? Which channels, how often, in which formats?
- What do they say? Which themes, hooks and claims repeat?
- What works for them? Which posts earn the strongest response relative to audience size?
- What are they missing? Which questions, objections and formats go unanswered?
Step 1: Which competitors should you pick?
Choose five to ten accounts and sort them into three groups. A short list keeps the grid readable.
- Direct competitors sell what you sell to the same people.
- Indirect competitors solve the same problem in a different way.
- Aspirational accounts are brands in other industries whose social content you admire.
Name no individuals in your notes beyond brand accounts, and analyze public content only. If you are unsure whom to include, ask your sales team which names come up in customer calls.
Step 2: What data should you collect?
Collect the same fields for each account, for the same window. Thirty to ninety days works well. A short window skews toward whatever campaign they ran last.
| Field | Where to find it | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Channels in use | Their website footer and profiles | Shows where they invest |
| Followers | Profile page | Needed for engagement rates |
| Posts per week | Count posts in the window | Reveals cadence |
| Formats | Video, carousel, text, image | Reveals what they believe works |
| Likes and comments | Each post | Input for engagement rate |
| Top three posts | Sort by response | Shows your best examples |
| Topics and hooks | Read the first line of each post | Feeds the theme matrix |
Collect by hand or with a tool that follows the platform's rules. X's automation rules, for example, prohibit scraping and browser automation. When in doubt, stay manual for the first pass.
Step 3: How do you analyze themes, hooks and formats?
Read the posts, then label them. Give each post one theme (education, product, social proof, behind the scenes, offers), one format and one hook type (result, question, mistake, story). After 30 to 40 posts per account you will see the pattern.
The output is a content-theme matrix. Rows are themes, columns are competitors, and each cell is the share of posts. Gaps stand out immediately: a theme that three rivals ignore is a chance, and a theme everyone covers is crowded. In many competitor sets the crowded theme is product features, while customer questions go unanswered.
Step 4: Benchmark engagement and posting frequency
You cannot see a rival's reach, so use what is public. These formulas work on any network.
| Metric | Formula | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement rate per post | (likes + comments) ÷ followers × 100 | (1,200 + 80) ÷ 40,000 × 100 = 3.2% |
| Average engagement rate | Mean of that rate over the window | Use at least 10 posts |
| Posting frequency | Posts ÷ weeks in window | 18 posts in 6 weeks = 3 a week |
| Format mix | Posts per format ÷ total posts | 9 videos of 18 posts = 50% |
The example numbers are invented to show the arithmetic. They are not benchmarks. Rates differ by network, audience size and niche, and we do not quote an industry average because a number without a dated primary source would mislead you. Build your own benchmark from your set, and compare yourself to the median of it.
Look at the spread, too. A competitor with one viral post and ten flat ones differs from a competitor that is steady. Use the median, not just the mean.
Step 5: Find gaps and counter-angles
Gaps come in three kinds. Topic gaps are subjects nobody covers. Format gaps are formats competitors avoid, such as video explainers in a text-heavy niche. Depth gaps are topics everyone covers shallowly.
For each gap, write a counter-angle, which is a way of answering a rival's claim with better evidence rather than copying it. Three common patterns:
- Practical blueprint. If they publish vague theory, publish the steps.
- Transparent cost. If they hide pricing, show costs clearly.
- Fast and focused. If their solution looks heavy, show the shortest path.
For a deeper method, see our guide to content gap analysis for social media.
Step 6: Turn findings into a 30-day plan
Findings only matter once they change the calendar. Take your top five gaps and give each one a week or two of content. Mix formats: one video, one carousel, one text post and one conversation starter per gap. Assign an owner and a date to each item.
Your social media competitor analysis report can be one page. Include the competitor set, three charts or tables (themes, engagement, frequency), five gaps, and the 30-day plan. If you need a planning scaffold, our social media strategy template covers the longer view.
Which tools do you use for competitor analysis?
Tools fall into three groups. Choose by how much time you have and how many competitors you track.
| Group | Examples | Strength | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manual | Spreadsheet, screenshots, the profiles themselves | Free, forces you to read | Slow beyond five rivals |
| Native analytics | LinkedIn's competitor analytics for Pages | Official data, no scraping | Covers one network, few competitors |
| AI-assisted | Tools that read a rival's page and summarize claims and gaps | Fast, scales | Needs a human check |
LinkedIn's competitor analytics, for instance, lets a free Page track one competitor and a Premium Page up to nine, with trending competitor posts from the past 30 days. Social media competitor analysis tools of the AI kind work from public pages, so always confirm what they say against the original.
If you want an audit of your own accounts alongside this, our social media audit process pairs well with it.
The free template, with a filled example
Copy these three tables into a spreadsheet to build your own social media competitor analysis template. The example uses a fictional invoicing app called LedgerLoop and made-up numbers. It exists to show the layout.
1. Competitor grid
| Brand | Group | Channels | Followers | Posts per week | Avg. engagement rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LedgerLoop (you) | Own | LinkedIn, Instagram | 8,000 | 3 | 2.9% |
| Rival A | Direct | LinkedIn, X, YouTube | 40,000 | 5 | 3.2% |
| Rival B | Indirect | LinkedIn, Instagram | 22,000 | 2 | 1.4% |
| Rival C | Aspirational | Instagram, TikTok | 150,000 | 7 | 4.1% |
2. Content-theme matrix (share of posts)
| Theme | LedgerLoop | Rival A | Rival B | Rival C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product features | 40% | 55% | 45% | 15% |
| Education and how-to | 30% | 15% | 20% | 50% |
| Customer stories | 10% | 20% | 5% | 10% |
| Pricing and costs | 0% | 0% | 5% | 0% |
| Behind the scenes | 20% | 10% | 25% | 25% |
3. Gap list
| Gap | Evidence | Counter-angle | Format | Week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing is rarely discussed | 0% to 5% of posts | Transparent cost | Carousel | 1 |
| Few how-to posts among direct rivals | 15% to 20% | Practical blueprint | Short video | 2 |
| Customer stories are thin | 5% to 20% | Real results, with permission | LinkedIn text | 3 |
How Publiqa helps with social media competitor analysis
In Publiqa, Competitor Radar takes over the reading step for public pages. It scans a public competitor URL, such as a blog post, feature announcement or landing page, and shows three things: the core pitch, the unaddressed gaps and three to five counter-angles. It does not replace the grid above. It speeds up the "what are they missing" question.
A run takes these steps:
- Open Radar from the dashboard, or start it when you launch a new campaign.
- Paste the public competitor URL and click Analyze.
- Read the core pitch, then the unaddressed gaps (objections, costs and limits the page glossed over).
- Pick a counter-angle that fits your evidence.
- Click "Generate Campaign with this Angle" to open Campaign Studio with hooks, video scripts and threads built around it.
Review everything before you use it, and answer the rival's claims with your own proof instead of attacking them by name. Competitor Radar finds content gaps and suggests counter-angles, and your judgment still sets the priorities.
Limits depend on the plan, per the pricing page: Solo scans 2 competitors daily, Growth 10 every 12 hours, and Agency 50 every 6 hours, while the Free Trial includes 5 competitor scans a month. Finished campaigns can leave through outgoing webhooks or headless CMS integrations, both live, while direct publishing to the networks is still rolling out.
Your two-hour starter plan
You can finish a first pass in an afternoon. Spend 20 minutes choosing seven accounts. Spend 60 minutes recording the last 30 days for each on the grid. Spend 20 minutes labeling themes. Use the final 20 minutes to write three gaps and one counter-angle each. Then schedule the first post.
To see how a rival's page looks through Radar, start free with 200 credits. No credit card required.
FAQ
How to do a social media competitor analysis?
Pick five to ten competitors, collect the same public data for each over 30 to 90 days, label their themes, hooks and formats, and calculate engagement and posting frequency. Then list gaps they leave open and turn the top five into a 30-day content plan with owners and dates.
How to do competitor analysis on social media with limited time?
Narrow the set to five accounts and one channel. Record posts per week, formats and the top three posts for the last 30 days, then label themes. Two hours is enough for a first pass that yields three gaps worth testing.
What tools do you use for social media competitor analysis?
Start with a spreadsheet and the profiles themselves, add native tools such as LinkedIn's competitor analytics where available, and use AI-assisted tools to summarize rival pages. Whichever you choose, verify summaries against the original and follow each platform's rules on data collection.
What should a social media competitor analysis report include?
Include the competitor set, a grid of channels, followers and cadence, a theme matrix, engagement rates, a ranked gap list and a 30-day plan. One page is enough. Add the date range and your method so readers can judge how reliable the figures are.
Can I use a social media competitor analysis template?
Yes. A template keeps your fields consistent. Use a competitor grid, a content-theme matrix and a gap list, as shown above. Copy the tables into a spreadsheet, replace the fictional example data with your own, and repeat the review every quarter.