How to Find Your Competitors on Instagram and Beat Them

Instagram is no longer just an entertaining social media network but a great source of data that can help businesses get ahead of their competitors.

According to the social media platform, 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business profile. That means you have a real opportunity to strengthen your social network community.

If you know how to find your competitors on Instagram, you can easily determine your unique value proposition.

As a marketer or entrepreneur, you can discover what is trendy in your niche on Instagram and find new hacks to improve the content on your Instagram account.

It can also help you get ahead of your competitors in the social media marketing game.

Wondering how?

In this post, let’s take a look at some of the best social media marketing strategies that can help you beat your competition.

 

How to Find Your Competitors on Instagram Easily

Instagram’s in-app search by interest has not yet been introduced in all countries. And if you do have access to it, you know that it isn’t robust yet.

To find your social media competitors easily, you need to use specialized tools.

For example, User Search for Instagram by Inflact can make it easy for you to find other similar Instagram accounts in your niche and check what they are posting.

In this section, let’s explore how you can leverage this competitor analysis tool for Instagram.

Stage #1: Search

User Search is an online database that contains businesses, influencers, and individuals, all grouped by categories, number of followers, and number of Instagram posts.

When you get results for the accounts you found via the search option, you can find insightful data via the “Analyze” option.

To filter the results, you can also use certain criteria including:

• By keywords – You can type keywords or phrases, which Inflact will find across Instagram nicknames, name sections, and bios.

Hack: Apply geographic keywords to find competitors nearby. For instance, you can indicate a city and a category and get more specific results.

• By niche – You can leave the search field blank and choose a category from the suggested options. There are dozens of niches, and you can search among them by using the search field above.

For example, you can type “food” and see all the categories from food delivery services to food tour agencies.

• By contact data – You can find a specific Instagram username by phone number/email (if they've chosen these contacts as their contact details on IG).

To perform this specific search, you need to insert an email or phone number into the search bar and choose “among email” or “among phone numbers” from the menu.

You can download search results in an Excel spreadsheet to share with colleagues.  The best part is that this tool enables you to instantly monitor their social media success as well.

This brings us to the next step – competitor analysis of the rivals you've found. You won't beat them without this data included in your social media marketing.

Stage #2: Instagram Analytics

Once you’ve got the desired Instagram accounts in front of you, you will need more information to determine their Instagram engagement and activity level. You may also want to identify the reasons for their social media success.

How to Make the Most of the User Search & Competitor Analysis Results:

Step 1 – Determine if their community is truly active on social media to find out if you should monitor them. The number of followers is no longer the best metric you should evaluate to measure Instagram fame.

These Instagram analytics can indicate if their target audience on social media actually interacts with their content.

If these numbers are not high, maybe you shouldn't consider them as a good example and continue looking at other Instagram accounts.

Pro Tip: You can skip the Instagram accounts with an engagement rate lower than 1%. At the same time, a 1-6% engagement rate is considered to be average or high.

Step 2 – Figure out how often they post to adjust your content and social media strategy.

In terms of social media content, quality matters but frequency and consistency are also crucial. Is it better to post twice a week or twice a day in your industry?

Find the answer on your own by comparing top players in the market.

Monitor what time they post on social media to get more engagement within your target audience.

You can also check research on the best posting times on Instagram for different niches. But comparing your competitors’ posting times can help you see what's working currently and what isn’t.

Using Inflact’s Profile Analyzer, you can see Instagram posts that are performing well along with the time they were posted at.

Step 3 – Spy on their hashtag marketing strategies to generate relevant hashtags and boost your social media reach.

If you use random hashtags, your target audience may not be able to find your Instagram stories or Instagram posts. However, don't copy and paste the hashtags of your competitors.

You need to mix them up and generate new ones based on them.

Here is an easy way to do it:

You can copy one of the top hashtags of your competitors, paste it into the Inflact Hashtag Generator and get hundreds of relevant suggestions.

Step 4 – Identify your competitors’ winning content to improve your own.

Social media marketing trends are rapidly changing, so it's vital to know which content gives the most engagement.

Using Inflact's Profile Analyzer, you can do it easily. Click on the “Analyze” option near your competitor's name.

There, you will find the section titled, “Topmost commented posts.”

Your task is to identify why your target clientele responds to this type of content and how you can improve your social media marketing strategy.

If your competitors get a great response to their giveaway, take a look at which kind of giveaway they organized. Also, check out the prize that they offered. These details can help you in getting ideas for your own giveaway.

Analyze at least 10-15 accounts in your niche to get a better idea of what works well.

FAQ

Q1. How do I find my competitors on Instagram?

A. You can’t really filter accounts by categories in the Instagram app.

However, you can find your social media rivals on Instagram by using competitor analysis tools, like User Search by Inflact. Without having to spend too much time, you can do competitor research easily.

Q2. How do I find companies in a niche on Instagram?

A. With the Inflact User Search tool, you can find companies in any niche by filtering them via the right keywords. Afterward, you can go directly to the listed accounts and explore similar accounts that Instagram suggests for you.

Q3. How can you analyze your competitors’ accounts on Instagram?

A. You can examine any public Instagram account with Inflact’s Profile Analyzer. This tool is free and can show you engagement rate, users' activity, posting schedule, top media, and hashtags.

Q4. What are the three types of competitors that you should look for?

A. For all businesses, there are three types of competitors — direct, indirect, and replacement rivals.

For a coffee shop, a direct competitor is a coffee shop on the next corner.  An indirect one is a bakery that also serves coffee, and a replacement rival is a hot tea from a vending machine.

Q5. Is spying on competitors legal?

A. Yes! Competitor analysis is a part of market research and a necessity for any business. Through thorough competitor research, you can improve your product and work on your pricing strategy.

Find Your Instagram Competitors

Finding and tracking your competitors is important if you want to be ahead of the social media game. Analyzing their Instagram profiles and content strategies can help you understand what resonates with your target audience.

All in all, it can help you fine-tune your social media, captions, and hashtags.

Ready to find your competitors on Instagram and analyze their social media marketing strategies?

Do you have any questions on competitor analysis? Please feel free to mention them in the comments section.