Gone are the days of just having a “secret shopper” go to the competitors store to find out pricing. New tactics are required. After reading this article in Entrepreneur by a former CIA Officer on How to Get Ahead of Your Competition, I thought about how you could “spy” on your competition through social media.

There are four aspects about social media that help you build or protect your business.  Let’s review:

• Build Your Brand with Social Media – Using social media allows you to have your logo, ideals and business practices in multiple locations, hopefully, in the right places where your customers are looking for you. Make sure that you are sharing the same message everywhere you are.
• Build Relationships – as you are developing your clientele you are also building a rapport between you and them.  Learning more about what they want or need.  Social media can help you stay in touch with them and carry on conversations.
• Level the Playing Field – every business has access to the same networks and tools available on the variety of social media platforms.  It is how well you use them and the available features as to how much better of an opponent you will be.
• Monitor Competitors – you can “keep an eye on your competition” by following their movements on the various platforms in which they participate. Have they offered a coupon, a pop-up sale, a new white paper? Do they have a newsletter, a blog, a photo journal? Can you modify or improve upon their idea to help your business?  Are you using more platforms than they are, but your engagement is lower?

What have you discovered when you were “spying” on your competition?