Identifying Influencers Working with Competitors: Techniques You Need Know

When did you last check out your competitors’ pages and online campaigns? The truth is marketing strategists rarely pay attention to this simple method when they are too busy developing a stellar marketing plan. However, taking a glance at your adversary’s business scheme every now and then might propel you to the top spot. This is particularly true once you have worked out how to identify influencers working with your competitors. When you assess what your competitors are up to, you gain insights and ideas to incorporate with your own. In fact, you might even be able to devise a way to beat their existing campaign.

The popularity of social media has shot up rapidly in the last ten years, and it’s not showing any sign of stopping. According to a Smart Insights report, over 3.8 billion out of the 4.5 billion internet users are also avid social media fans. That’s proof that a lot of people who go online do so to check their social media pages. Most of the time, when they do, it is to catch a glimpse of certain individuals known to marketers as influencers. These people can sway users’ thinking and have a hold over their decision making and opinions.

Companies have seen how much impact influencers have on the general public and decided to make something out of it, giving way to influencer marketing. And, why not? They are much cheaper than Hollywood celebrities, and people find them much more relatable. If you are now only considering influencer marketing to improve your company’s standing, it is not too late. In fact, one way you can catch up is to learn how to identify influencers working with your competitors.

Is It Really Important to Know What Your Competitors Are Doing?

Quick answer–yes. Looking for influencers is a daunting and meticulous task. However, it is necessary to take your time to ensure that you pick out the perfect individual to collaborate with and include in your marketing strategy.

Checking who your competitors have gotten into bed with and what they are currently up to now gives you a jump on things. You get an idea of how they operate, and you can revise and tweak their strategies to get ahead of the game. Or better yet, you can use what you found out to overshadow their campaign with yours. 

How Do You Identify Social Media Influencers?

Before you go looking for influencers in your niche that your competitors already bagged, let us first define social media influencers making it easy for you to spot one from a distance.

Social Media Influencers are sought after in the digital marketing industry, not only in pop culture. According to an article from The NY Times, it is about time we recognize the contribution of social media influencers in the business world. But, just who are these ordinary people taking the world by storm?

Influencers are self-made. They are popular for being experts and establishing their marks in their chosen fields through, none other than, social media. They easily get through to people as a result of genuineness and mass-market appeal.

How to Identify Influencers Working with Your Competitors

Whatever your reasons are for prying into what the other folks are doing, here are some methods you can try.

Analyze Social Media Pages

Social media analysis can start out exciting, but it is a real back-breaking task. However, there are alternative routes you can take. For instance, if you already know how to identify brand influencers on social media, take a look at their posting mannerisms. One thing about influencers is that they are not difficult to investigate. 

Simply clicking on your competitor’s profile can also give you an idea of who they are collaborating with. On Instagram, try taking a peek at the tagged post section. You will see random people who are tagging your competitors on their posts. Check if you can recognize some influencers. Some of them may already have an agreement in place with your competitor, while others probably haven’t. If you have been wondering how to find Instagram influencers in your niche, here’s a quick solution.

There are tools you can use to check out brand mentions your competitors are getting. Through Mention (paid) and Social Searcher (free), you can have access to the information about influencers using branded keywords from your competitors. These tools also give you an overview of the content types and how they are received. If you really want to get into it, you can also have a look at some of the most liked posts, be it videos or photos, and trace them back to the influencer’s profile. 

When you are intent on keeping up to date with the comings and goings in your industry, you already have a pretty good idea how to nose them out. Regularly check for sponsored posts. On Twitter or Instagram, the process is much straightforward, thanks to hashtags. In this way, if you can confirm that a certain influencer is working with your competitors, you can see how your competitor’s campaign is faring. Once you have access, you can take a look at its performance in detail by checking out the backlink and sharing activity to get the measure of the results yourself.

Scrutinize Backlinks

Backlinks are the core of SEO. They spread your name around until search engines recognize you, and put your website on the map, along with others who have already earned their spots on a search engine’s wall of fame.

Influencers marketing can speed up this process for you, whispering in the search engine’s ear that you are doing well by spreading backlinks to your social media page or website. The way the modern crowd sees it is if you are worthy of a post and a shout-out from an influencer they love and adore, you best be sure they would flock to your page or website to see what the fuss is about. That is how powerful influencer marketing is.

There is a way for you to use backlinks to your advantage when finding ways to identify influencers working with the folks on the other side. Get a good SEO backlink checker to unearth treasures you will otherwise have no access to.  Link intersects allow you to see the different websites that have a relationship with your competitors’. Check to see if some of the websites on that list are blogs. When you discover the partnerships your competitors have with different influencers, you can examine what they are all about.

Just bear in mind that you won’t have access to everything, but at least, you get a glimpse of their profiles. The results will show you influencers who have tie-ups with other companies in your domain. This may not be the best way to find brand ambassadors because some of them may already be representatives of your rival companies. In this case, it is best to look the other way. However, most influencers prefer to do collaborative work. If some of them are willing to do business with your competitor, then you might have an easy fix to the question in your head, “how do I find influencers to work with?” Such is the power of influencer marketing.

Attend Conferences and Events

One fun way of doing due diligence is to leave your station and meet these influencers in real life. Make a list of social events happening in your circle, especially those events that social media celebrities frequent. 

Let’s say, you work in the beauty industry. Try to attend as many cosmetic trade shows and conferences as you and your team can. Or at the very least, do your best not to miss out on leading conventions, such as Cosmoprof North America. Also, if you have been lost on how to find influencers for your brand, bidding adieu to your office from time to time and attending social functions can do wonders. For sure, there are tons of Youtube beauty gurus and Instagram make-up mavens from all over the world trying to secure brands for different opportunities in such social events. Not only can you observe your competitors from a distance during such conferences, but you’d also be forming your own connections. Way to hit two birds with one stone, right? 

Aside from big events, it is also a good idea to include lesser-known events in your radar. Chances are your competitors might be conducting meetups to recruit influencers to endorse their products or services. This is your chance to go undercover and even answer the question, “How do you approach influencers to work with your brand?.”

Do Previous Collaborations Matter?

We have talked about backlinks earlier, but we have barely scratched the surface on the subject of doing research. You will have to dig deeper. Not a lot of companies think about doing background checks on their influencers. When you conduct backlinks analysis to discover which social media presence has made waves with your competitor, you don’t stop there. If it happened in the past, you have the advantage of seeing what transpired in that marketing campaign. Was it successful? Was it a flop? Either way, you get to learn from someone’s experience without the risk of failure in place.

How do you identify brand influencers that will promote your brand without a hitch? Go over their track record. Always conduct careful examination whenever you team up with an influencer. Do not overlook what a bunch of people in the industry fail to recognize, because, unfortunately, in marketing, the past affects the future. If you are looking to hire an influencer linked to an unredeemable campaign in the past, you would not want to work with that someone. You would not willingly taint your reputation, right? This is yet another good reason for you to snoop on your competitors, so you are updated about their controversies and successes.

The Takeaway

The methods mentioned above are simple and effective. Make it a habit to carefully analyze your competitor’s influencer marketing strategy ever so often. Scrolling through their partner influencer’s profile is also beneficial because you observe and examine if their approach is practical. Sure, you will need to spare ample time to do these regularly, but rest assured that it is not wasted.

Do you know other ways to pry on what your business rivals are up to? Feel free to share them with us. And if you still want to learn more about influencer marketing, check out our article on the 10 reasons why your brand needs an influencer manager.