Analyzing your competition is vital to making yourself a competitor in the marketplace. Knowing what your competitors are doing can give you insight on what to do or change yourself for your own business strategy. Knowing how to properly search for your local competition can help you know where to market, keeps you up to date on latest trends, and helps you understand other aspects  of the market you are in. 

Connect with your Competitors

Connecting with your competitors on LinkedIn will mean their content will appear on your page. This will give you a concise stream of information on your competitor and will make finding trends much easier. You could also potentially make partnerships with more people and open more doors to future opportunities and events. A reminder that competitors don’t need to be your enemies - there’s a lot to learn from each other! 

Use Keywords in your Search

When searching on LinkedIn, there are many different things you can look for other than a specific person's name. You can search by job title, industry sector, and criteria such as company size. When searching for direct competitors, searching for other companies that are roughly the same size and scope will show you others in your area that are comparable to what you have accomplished so far. In addition, looking at companies larger than yourself will show you what you need to master in order to grow to that size. 

Participate In and Observe Trends

Participating in social media trends is one of the quickest but most unreliable ways of marketing. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try! Observing what trends your competitors have participated in, and what videos and posts did particularly well can show you and give you ideas for your own content creation. 

Check out their LinkedIn Profile

Look at others' LinkedIn profiles, not just to see what content they have, but also how well their profile works to draw in new people. Observing and comparing what others have done well and what has worked in the past for other people will mean that you don’t need to spend as much time trying new things only for them to not work out. 

Moving Forward

Understanding the market you work in takes time. It requires research, implementation and consistent expansion of your network. However, making sure you are updated and are staying relevant with what is happening in the field will help you tremendously when making decisions. 

Looking for more ways to grow your LinkedIn profile? Reach out to us at matt@mwmconsulting.org and let's help you build your personal brand.