Research competitors' social media strategy

Competitor Social Research

Overview

Analyze what competitors are doing on social and what appears to be working. This skill combines profile data, recent posts, outlier analysis, transcripts, and optionally comments to produce a practical competitor brief.

When to Use

Use this skill when the user asks to:

• compare competitors on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, Threads, or other social platforms
• find what content is working in a niche
• benchmark posting frequency, formats, topics, and engagement
• identify content gaps or opportunities
• build a social strategy from competitor research

Workflow

1. Define competitors and platforms

   • Use provided handles/URLs.
   • If only company names are provided, search profiles first and confirm likely matches when ambiguity matters.

2. Fetch profile snapshots

   • Followers/subscribers
   • Bio/positioning
   • Links
   • Verification/public metadata

3. Fetch recent content

   • Pull comparable recent windows per competitor.
   • Track source URLs, dates, captions, formats, and metrics.

4. Find outliers per competitor

   • Use each account's own median baseline.
   • Do not compare raw views between a huge brand and a small brand without context.

5. Analyze content strategy

   • Content pillars
   • Formats
   • Hook styles
   • Posting cadence
   • Offers/CTAs
   • Use of founder/creator personality
   • Community/comment patterns

6. Find gaps and opportunities Look for:

   • topics competitors avoid
   • formats that overperform but few competitors use
   • unanswered audience questions
   • weak hooks or repetitive content
   • platform whitespace

Useful ScrapeCreators Endpoints

Use the relevant profile/feed/detail/transcript/comment endpoints from scrapecreators-api. Common routes include:

• TikTok: /v1/tiktok/profile, /v3/tiktok/profile/videos
• Instagram: /v1/instagram/profile, /v2/instagram/user/posts, /v1/instagram/user/reels
• YouTube: /v1/youtube/channel, /v1/youtube/channel-videos, /v1/youtube/channel/shorts
• LinkedIn: /v1/linkedin/company, /v1/linkedin/company/posts
• Facebook: /v1/facebook/profile, /v1/facebook/profile/posts, /v1/facebook/profile/reels
• X/Twitter: /v1/twitter/profile, /v1/twitter/user-tweets
• Threads: /v1/threads/profile, /v1/threads/user/posts
• Bluesky: /v1/bluesky/profile, /v1/bluesky/user/posts

Output Format

# Competitor Social Research Brief

## Executive Summary
- Biggest opportunity:
- Competitor to study closest:
- Content format to test first:

## Competitor Snapshot
| Competitor | Platforms | Audience size | Posting cadence | Best-performing format | Notes |
|---|---|---:|---|---|---|

## What Is Working
### Competitor A
- Content pillars:
- Outlier examples:
- Hooks/formats:

## Cross-Competitor Patterns
1. ...
2. ...

## Gaps and Opportunities
| Opportunity | Evidence | Suggested test |
|---|---|---|

## Recommended Content Tests
1. ...
2. ...
3. ...

## Sources
- [Post/profile/ad](url)

Common Pitfalls

• Do not compare competitors only by follower count. Engagement and outlier lift matter more.
• Do not mix platforms without platform context. A good LinkedIn post and good TikTok are different artifacts.
• Do not assume a profile match from a company name if multiple brands share the name.
• Do not present competitor strategy as fact when it is inferred from public content. Say "appears to" or "suggests".