Understanding how your competitors perform on social media can offer invaluable insights that drive your strategy forward. By analyzing your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and engagement tactics, you can identify gaps in the market, optimize your campaigns, and enhance your brand’s presence across social media platforms.

To achieve this, social media analytics tools are essential. They allow you to track metrics like follower growth, engagement rates, top-performing posts, and even audience sentiment. In this guide, we’ll review the best social media analytics tools for competitor analysis in 2024. We’ll explore their features, pricing, and how they help you gain a competitive edge.

Let’s dive into the top tools that can elevate your competitor analysis strategy.

Why Use Social Media Analytics for Competitor Analysis?

Before jumping into the best tools, it’s important to understand why competitor analysis is crucial for social media success:

1. Identify Market Trends: Analyzing competitors helps you spot trends in your niche and adjust your strategy accordingly.
2. Understand Competitor Tactics: By monitoring your rivals’ social media activities, you can uncover the tactics that work well for them, such as content formats, posting times, and engagement strategies.
3. Improve Content Strategy: Discover which types of posts generate the most engagement for your competitors and replicate or improve upon them.
4. Measure Your Performance: Compare your performance against competitors to see where you stand and identify areas for improvement.
5. Optimize Ad Spend: Analytics tools allow you to track competitor ad campaigns, helping you fine-tune your own advertising efforts.

1. SEMrush – Best for Comprehensive Competitor Analysis

SEMrush is a well-known digital marketing tool that offers extensive social media analytics features, making it an excellent choice for competitor analysis. It provides insights into your competitors’ social media campaigns, engagement rates, follower growth, and more.

Key Features of SEMrush

• Social Media Tracker: Allows you to track your competitors’ profiles across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. It shows engagement metrics, follower growth, and posting frequency.
• Ad Analysis: Analyzes competitors’ ad strategies on social media, displaying which ads perform best and where they’re targeted.
• Post Performance: View top-performing posts from competitors, including the type of content, hashtags used, and engagement levels.
• Audience Insights: Provides data about competitors’ audiences, such as demographics, interests, and online behavior.
• Content Gap Analysis: Helps identify content that resonates with your competitors’ audience, enabling you to fill the gaps with your own content.

Pricing of SEMrush

• Pro Plan: $129.95/month, offering access to social media tracking and other analytics tools.
• Guru Plan: $249.95/month, with additional features like historical data and content gap analysis.
• Business Plan: $499.95/month, providing complete access to all tools and data.

Pros and Cons of SEMrush

• Pros:
  • Provides comprehensive competitor insights.
  • Covers multiple social media platforms.
  • Offers content gap analysis to improve your strategy.
  • Allows integration with Google Analytics for broader insights.
• Cons:
  • Higher price point for small businesses.
  • Steep learning curve for beginners.

Best For

SEMrush is ideal for marketers, social media managers, and digital marketing agencies looking for a comprehensive tool that covers social media, SEO, and PPC analytics.

2. Hootsuite – Best for Social Media Management and Analytics

Hootsuite is a popular social media management tool that offers strong analytics capabilities, making it perfect for competitor analysis. It tracks social media metrics, monitors competitors’ content, and provides insights into engagement trends.

Key Features of Hootsuite

• Social Media Monitoring: Tracks competitor profiles across multiple platforms, offering insights into engagement rates, follower growth, and trending topics.
• Customizable Dashboards: Allows you to set up dashboards with the metrics most relevant to your competitor analysis.
• Competitor Benchmarking: Compares your performance against competitors, providing insights into engagement, sentiment, and posting strategies.
• Content Performance: Analyzes competitors’ top-performing posts, showing which types of content (videos, images, text) generate the most engagement.
• Ad Analytics: Tracks competitors’ social media ad campaigns, offering insights into ad formats, budgets, and performance.

Pricing of Hootsuite

• Professional Plan: $99/month, offering basic analytics and competitor tracking.
• Team Plan: $249/month, providing advanced analytics and team collaboration features.
• Business Plan: $739/month, with additional features like custom analytics and reporting.

Pros and Cons of Hootsuite

• Pros:
  • Easy-to-use interface with customizable dashboards.
  • Covers all major social media platforms.
  • Provides ad analytics for competitive insights.
  • Offers additional social media management features like scheduling and monitoring.
• Cons:
  • Advanced analytics features are available only on higher-tier plans.
  • Can be expensive for small businesses.

Best For

Hootsuite is best for social media managers, digital marketers, and agencies looking to manage and analyze multiple social media profiles, track competitors, and optimize their social strategies.

3. BuzzSumo – Best for Content Performance Analysis

BuzzSumo is a content analytics tool that specializes in tracking the performance of content on social media. It’s a great choice for analyzing competitors’ top-performing posts, understanding trends, and discovering popular content formats.

Key Features of BuzzSumo

• Content Discovery: Finds trending topics and top-performing content within your industry and among competitors.
• Competitor Content Analysis: Analyzes which types of content generate the most engagement for competitors, helping you adjust your strategy.
• Backlink Tracking: Tracks backlinks to competitor content, allowing you to identify link-building opportunities.
• Social Media Engagement Metrics: Provides detailed data on social shares, likes, comments, and other engagement metrics for competitor content.
• Influencer Identification: Finds influencers who are sharing competitor content, offering potential collaboration opportunities.

Pricing of BuzzSumo

• Basic Plan: $99/month, covering basic content and competitor analysis features.
• Plus Plan: $179/month, with more advanced analytics and historical data.
• Large Plan: $299/month, providing complete access to content and competitor analytics.

Pros and Cons of BuzzSumo

• Pros:
  • Specializes in content performance tracking.
  • Offers backlink tracking and influencer identification.
  • Easy to use, even for beginners.
  • Provides insights across multiple social media platforms.
• Cons:
  • Limited social media-specific features compared to all-in-one tools.
  • Higher-tier plans are needed for advanced analytics.

Best For

BuzzSumo is best for content marketers, bloggers, and social media teams focused on analyzing content performance and identifying content trends in their industry.

4. Sprout Social – Best for Social Listening and Analytics

Sprout Social is a social media management tool that offers in-depth analytics and social listening features, making it a strong option for competitor analysis. It provides a complete view of competitors’ social media performance and engagement.

Key Features of Sprout Social

• Social Listening: Tracks brand mentions, hashtags, and keywords related to competitors, helping you understand their reputation and engagement levels.
• Engagement Analysis: Analyzes competitor engagement metrics, such as likes, shares, comments, and follower growth.
• Campaign Tracking: Tracks the performance of competitors’ ad campaigns and sponsored posts on social media.
• Cross-Platform Analysis: Provides data on competitor performance across multiple social media platforms.
• Content Strategy Insights: Helps identify content strategies that drive engagement and identify potential gaps in your own strategy.

Pricing of Sprout Social

• Standard Plan: $249/month, offering basic analytics and competitor tracking.
• Professional Plan: $399/month, providing advanced analytics, social listening, and additional features.
• Advanced Plan: $499/month, with complete access to all features, including reporting and custom dashboards.

Pros and Cons of Sprout Social

• Pros:
  • Strong social listening and analytics capabilities.
  • Provides comprehensive competitor insights.
  • Offers cross-platform analysis in one dashboard.
  • Ideal for large teams with collaboration features.
• Cons:
  • Expensive for small businesses.
  • Limited features on lower-tier plans.

Best For

Sprout Social is ideal for mid-size businesses, digital agencies, and social media teams looking for a tool that combines social listening with competitor analysis.

5. Social Blade – Best for YouTube and Instagram Analytics

Social Blade is a specialized tool that offers detailed analytics for YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. It’s widely used by marketers and social media teams to track competitor growth and engagement rates on visual platforms.

Key Features of Social Blade

• YouTube Analytics: Tracks subscriber growth, video views, and engagement rates for competitors’ YouTube channels.
• Instagram Analytics: Provides data on follower growth, post engagement, and content performance.
• Historical Data: Offers historical analytics for long-term trend analysis, helping you understand competitors’ growth patterns.
• Live Count Feature: Provides live subscriber counts for YouTube and follower counts for Instagram, helping you keep track of competitor growth in real-time.

Pricing of Social Blade

• Free Plan: Offers basic analytics for YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
• Bronze Plan: $3.99/month, providing additional data points and historical trends.
• Silver Plan: $9.99/month, offering more detailed analytics and competitive insights.

Pros and Cons of Social Blade

• Pros:
  • Provides detailed analytics for YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
  • Easy to use, with a straightforward interface.
  • Affordable pricing for smaller businesses.
• Cons:
  • Limited to visual social media platforms.
  • Lacks in-depth features for other social networks like Twitter or LinkedIn.

Best For

Social Blade is best for content creators, YouTubers, and Instagram marketers looking to track competitor performance on visual platforms.

Final Recommendations

When it comes to choosing the best social media analytics tool for competitor analysis, consider your budget, the platforms you focus on, and the level of detail you need:

• SEMrush: Best for comprehensive competitor analysis across social media, SEO, and PPC.
• Hootsuite: Ideal for those looking to manage and analyze multiple social media accounts in one place.
• BuzzSumo: Perfect for content marketers who want to analyze competitor content performance.
• Sprout Social: Great for businesses looking for advanced analytics and social listening features.
• Social Blade: Best for tracking competitors on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Conclusion

Analyzing your competitors’ social media strategies can help you refine your own tactics, identify growth opportunities, and improve your social media performance. By leveraging the right analytics tools, you can stay ahead of the competition, optimize your campaigns, and achieve better results across social media platforms. Choose the tool that best fits your needs, and start improving your social media strategy today.