Marketing is all about competition. And monitoring your competitors on social media may not only be exciting but also necessary for your business and online marketing strategy. You can watch your competitors’ activity by following them on Instagram itself or using tools like 4K Stogram to anonymously view their content.
Let us consider each way in detail.
1. Monitor competitors on Instagram within Instagram
The easiest and most obvious way to monitor your rivals on social media is to follow them. However, the smart Instagram algorithm doesn’t always let you see your followings’ content in the feed, so to get your rivals’ posts on your Instagram, you need to interact with their content constantly.
But we don’t want to increase our competitors’ engagement, right? Let’s consider other ways of monitoring their activity within the native app.
Check hashtags your competitor is following
Hashtags that you follow on Instagram are not hidden, so everyone who visits your Following tab on Instagram can see them. Note that this if you don’t want to share your hobbies on Instagram.
For instance, the Instagram official account is following these hashtags at the moment: #thisweekoninstagram, #untoldpride, #shareblackstories, #hellofrom and #weeklyfluff. So, if you want to get featured on Instagram’s page, you can upload a relevant photo with one of the hashtags.
By knowing the hashtags your competitors follow, you can assume what content on Instagram they cater to, if they try to be up-to-date within their niche, if they repeat the content of other businesses, and more.
Check the Mutual section in Followers’ tab
When heading over to this section, you will notice not only your friends following the brand but also bloggers the brand has possibly partnered with.
2. Monitor your Instagram competitors with 4K Stogram
4K Stogram is a desktop tool that allows you to download Instagram photos, videos, and Stories from other accounts, hashtags, and locations on your PC or Mac.
Every account’s content you’re subscribed to within the app will be automatically downloaded on your computer once new items are published. No worries, you can delete all the media or stop downloading at any time.
The app is also useful for monitoring competitors’ content on Instagram.
4K Stogram allows you to view Stories of any account anonymously. All you need to do is to type a username of the required account and press Subscribe. You will not follow the account on Instagram, just within 4K Stogram.
Once you pressed Subscribe, the app will start downloading photos, videos, and stories of an account automatically until you stop it. Stories are marked with the dot-inside-a-circle sign, and you can view them without an account owner’s knowledge.
Another useful feature 4K Stogram provides you with is the ability to see competitors’ feeds as your own without following their following list on Instagram. Thus, you will not spam your feed within the native app but can easily monitor competitors in 4K Stogram.
To do so, subscribe to an account whose feed you want to see within 4K Stogram. Then choose Subscribe to Accounts [username] Follows.
4K Stogram will do the rest for you: it will download all the content, and you will enjoy watching what your competitor sees on Instagram in real time.
If your competitor has a private account, you can download and see their content too, but only if you’re logged into your account and if you’re a verified user.
Additional features of 4K Stogram you may find useful for your Instagram marketing are as follows:
- The app can help you embed an Instagram feed on your website.
It doesn’t do it automatically, but with the help of the app, you can create a collage of content that has been deleted, archived, or hidden on Instagram but previously saved on your PC.
- 4K Stogram can back up your Instagram account for you to make sure the content is not lost.
No one is safe from an account block, so we recommend you to back up your Instagram account with 4K Stogram in one click. To do so, subscribe to your own Instagram account in 4K Stogram, and all the media you have and will publish will be automatically saved on your computer.
- All the downloaded photos and videos contain comments and hashtags information in their metadata.
- You can download Instagram photos and videos by username, location, or hashtags.
Type in any username, place or hashtag, and the content associated with it will be automatically downloaded on your PC.
Press a folder sign to see where the content is stored.
- You can download your saved Instagram posts.
- You can subscribe to any Instagram accounts, hashtags and locations within the app.
The content will appear in 4K Stogram, not in the Instagram feed.
3. Monitor your competitors’ Instagram advertising
If you want to check how creative your competitors are in terms of advertising and how they generally promote their products, you can check which of their ads currently run on Instagram.
You can do it both of these ways:
- On Instagram itself.
- On Facebook.
Check your competitors’ ads on Instagram
Find the account whose ads you want to see, press three dots at the top right corner of the page and select About This Account. Then head over to Active Ads and tap it.
Then you can watch any ads of the account — images, carousels, videos, or stories.
Check your competitors’ ads on Facebook
If you know what Facebook page is connected to a particular Instagram account or assume the username of the Instagram account and the Page are the same, you can do the following:
Open Facebook and search for any of your competitors by a specific name or relevant keywords. For instance, “men’s clothes London”. You should search in the section Page, not People, Places, Groups, or others.
Then, click on one of the search results and open the page. Find Page transparency and press See more. You will be redirected to the page summary, which, along with others, suggests to go to Ad Library.
Press the Go to Ad Library button, and you will see all the running ads. Filter out the results by countries, platforms, and time of gained impressions.
Final thoughts
Monitoring your competitors on social media is a vital activity of the competitors analysis stage. Knowing which ads they use, which bloggers they collaborate with, and what content they follow and see on their feed are useful insights that will help you outsmart them and choose the right triggers to attract their audience and customers.
Instagram and Facebook offer lots of opportunities to get these insights, but additional tools like 4K Stogram may provide you with information you never knew before. Hopefully, some of the above methods will level up your competitors research and elevate your Instagram marketing.
