What do you want to accomplish?
We will create an overview of our competitors’ content strategies.
Why?
When creating content, you basically have 2 options:
- Or you copy the strategy of your competition: you create the same kind of topics on the same channels.
- Or you try to be different & better: be a unique voice in your niche.
I suggest you go for the second option, but whatever route you choose, it’s a good idea to make an inventory of your competitors’ content strategies. In this hack, we will reverse engineer our competitors’ content marketing activities.
Once you know what your competition is doing, you can start to think about how you can do it differently, better, more unique….
What do you need?
This hack is all about making time and having a critical look at the market around you. We will create a spreadsheet to keep track of all the data points that we collect.
Procedure
Let’s review the procedure:
(1) Start with creating a list of your most important competitors. If you’re operating in a totally new market (not many of us do), then look for those companies that are closest related.
(2) Now repeat the steps below for every single competitor from your list:
(3) Go to the website of the specific competitor:
- Check if it is a static site (never updated after creation) or if it is updated frequently
- Do they have a blog? How frequently do they post?
- Check if they have a news section or other parts that are updated frequently.
- Is their content actionable, informative, or sales-oriented?
(4) Google your competitor’s name:
- How many search results are returned on the first page that directly links to their content?
- What type of content do you see, what stands out, how long is the content?
- Do they use only text, or also images and videos?
- Do you see calls to action (CTA’s), customer testimonials?
- Do you see Ads from this specific competitor?
(5) Log-on to all major social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter) and go to the pages of the competitor at hand:
- Do they have an account on the specific platform?
- Are they posting, and how frequently?
- Do they have engaged audiences that interact with the content?
Now repeat this procedure (go back to step 2) for every single competitor.
Summary
In order to create your own content strategy (or better ‘your own unique voice’), you need to be aware of what is going on in your industry. Only then you will be able to identify where you can make the difference and start to create content that will be noticed!