Measuring Competitor Activity in the Digital Space [Digital Marketing Web Presence Setup Step 3]

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At this point we assume that you have gone through the painstaking business of conducting market and competitor research for your business. If your existing business has been around a while, we’re hoping you’ve have made updates to those plans to keep with the current market conditions.

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If you need reminders on how to do this, start here:

• SBA.gov’s Market Analysis outlines
• outline I use for business plans, including market research

[vc_column_text]The reason we point this out is because this is the point in the process where you’re going to look at all the wonderful, painstaking work you did in step 2, “Essential Digital Marketing, Social Media, and Other Online Properties in 2016.”, and do the same for your competitors.

By the way, if you find that your competitors have gaps in their own essential digital marketing platform account lineup and you feel like you want to hold onto those missing ones for them, because that’s what friendly competitors do, we suggest going all the way back to the first step, “Get a Google Account,” and set up with the following provisions:

• Set up 2 anonymous Google Accounts for every Google Account you need in order to cross-support each other: this way, you can use the Gmail and Google Voice accounts in the two anonymous accounts to cross-support each other in case you forget one. Remember, Google Voice receives text messages. Just check them at that anonymous coffee house in the other town. NOTE: this includes two Google accounts for every competitor, and two accounts for every one of their brands that act as individual entities.
• Don’t use your branding when set it up. Use something that’s either generic or theirs. Keep it anonymous.
• Don’t use your phone number. Use one of the recently-made Google accounts.

“Is what you’re proposing legal?”

So far, to this point, all I’m proposing to do is to squat on accounts that weren’t claimed. I haven’t proposed attempting to sell the properties or accounts to the competitors for obscene amounts of money, or any other issues that could potentially get one into a lawsuit for cybersquatting. And I wouldn’t do that. I’m not proposing guerilla tactics of any kind. No ghost tweeting or using the accounts a pseudonym or anything.

At this point, what I’m suggesting is more white hat than what Donald Trump did to Jeb Bush’s website during the 2016 US Presidential elections.

I’m just suggesting holding on to it for them for a little while if they forget to pick it up themselves. And if they ask your anonymous accounts, believing the anonymous account to be a real person who isn’t their competitor, and you drag your heels in responding to them, I’m not going to tell.

Either way, that’s not why we do this.

We’re going to conduct 2 primary strategies with the information

The first thing we’re going to do with the space is to measure their activity and involvement.

The Chinese philosopher Confucius once said that there were three methods to obtain wisdom: reflection, imitation, and experience.

A great way to get started is to 1) research & reflect on the ways your competitors are occupying those online mediums, noting which of their tactics and techniques gets the most favorable results. Then we’re going to 2) all but imitate the way they do the most favorably resulting tactics and techniques, putting your own branded twist on these favorable tactics as well as improving on it where possible. These techniques are going to 3) expedite the level and depth of experience in digital marketing and social media, measuring the results and going back to step 1.

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

The second thing we’re going to do with this information is to keep continual tabs on competitor activity in their preferred spaces.

Anymore, if they announce something, it’s going to be online before it even gets into an email, let alone a traditional advertising or PR vertical. And because you don’t want to be up all night tracking their every movement, we’re going to introduce a few tools to use to help keep track of the information for them. These tools will be introduced in the next article, “How to listen and track your digital markets.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]