How to Spy on Social Networks by Dropshipping

In the past, businesses used traditional methods to promote their products and services, but the rise of social media platforms has changed the marketing strategies of the world's most successful brands. A strong social media presence has become a vital requirement for any business or person with a brand to promote, especially if you are a dropshipper. 

Indeed, whether you're on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok or any other leading social network, it's essential to keep an eye on what your competition is doing on these same platforms. You'll gain valuable information that will enable you to make the best decisions for your business. How can I spy on social networks?

Find out, here, what information you can get from advanced spy tools and how this information can help you boost your business and gain an edge over others in your industry. You will also discover the best spy tools for social networks that you can use to get the maximum information about your competitors. 

Why spy on social networks when dropshipping?

Monitor competitors' social media accounts or spy on competitors' social networks to better understand their to better understand their strategies is a form of competitive analysis and a common element of today's marketing strategies. 

Spying on social networks is a step of spying on the competition that can be done in a short time and that will allow you to quickly take the temperature of the market and to have a quick idea on the type of audience of your competitors in order to prepare in advance.  

This quick spy can give you answers to the following questions: 

• Which of your competitors use social media?
• Which social networks do they use and on which are they most active? For example, a particular brand may have accounts on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, but only use Facebook most often. 
• What type of content do they publish to engage their audience? Do they use "memes" to better engage their community?
• What times of day do they post most often? This helps determine the times when your potential customers are most likely to use social networks and make purchases.
• What types of creative do they use for their advertising campaigns?

In return, you can use all this information to fine-tune your marketing strategy . This is the ultimate goal of social network spying. 

In addition, spying on competitors' social networks can help you determine current marketing and customer engagement trends. It can also help you identify opportunities that competing brands haven't tried yet, social media strategies that work better than others, and problems and solutions that your audience and potential customers are responding to.

While the ideal frequency at which you should spy on social networks varies depending on factors such as your industry, number of competitors and most importantly your type of audience, it is crucial to find a regular rhythm. Regular social media spying, whether it's monthly or quarterly, is essential to refresh your thinking and ensure your competitive information is up to date.

What spying tools are available for social networks?

To spy on competitors on social networks, you can use various tools. Here I present you the best tools you can use to spy on your competitors on social networks. 

Minea: spy on competitors' advertising campaigns

When you engage in spying on social networks, one of the most important parameters to consider is spying on advertising campaigns .

Most of the brands on the social networks carry out advertising campaigns to promote their products on the social networks. In fact, for many, this is the main source of traffic. Also, if you are dropshipping, you cannot rely on organic reach to drive traffic to your website. 

Spying on your competitors' ads will allow you to have very relevant information on how your competitors carry out their advertising campaigns. For this, the basic tool you can use is Minea. 

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Minea is one of the best spy tools for social networks that you can use to spy on your competitors. The tool is equipped with intelligent algorithms that spy on social networks and collect all the advertisements that are on them. All these ads are stored in databases that are made available to the users of the tool. 

Since Minea spies on several social networks, the tool has several libraries of advertisements. This further increases the chances of finding a winning product. Whether your competitors are on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Minea is able to spy on them. 

With such a large database, you might wonder how it would be possible to find exactly the advertisements you want to see. The creators of Minea have thought of all this and have made available to the users of the tool highly developed filters that will allow them to optimize their searches according to their needs. 

So you can search for ads by: 

• Keyword;
• Page name;
• Domain name;
• Social engagement (Likes, comments, shares);
• Country;
• Date of ad view;
• A call to action; 
• Media type;
• E-commerce platform;
• Language... 

For each ad on Minea, you will have relevant information such as the performance of the ad over time, the number of social engagements, but especially the target audience of the advertiser. 

Minea also offers two other features: the Competitor Store Spy Tool and the Influencer Marketing Spy Tool. With Minea's store spy tool, you can spy on your competitors' online store statics in real time. It's the best way to find out whether they're making sales or not.
The Influencer Marketing spy tool lets you keep an eye on the various product placements your competitors are making. This tool can be very useful if you want to create a large community around your products. 

That's what makes Minea the ultimate all-in-one tool for spying on social network ads.
You can call Minea a free spy tool for social networks, because you're entitled to a free plan that lets you test all the tool's features. 

Dropispy

We cannot talk about spying on social networks without talking about Dropispy. Who says spying on competitors on social networks says spying on advertisements on Facebook. 

Dropispy is basically a product search tool that specializes in spying on Facebook ads. Since the tool collects data related to ads made by advertisers on Facebook, you can use it to spy on your competitors.
To do this, you just need to use the filters offered by the tool to filter your search results according to your needs. For example, you can filter according to the page of your competitors, according to the keywords, the social engagement of the ad or even the language. 

Moreover, Dropispy also allows you to spy on your competitors' stores by providing you with useful information about the traffic and audience of the store visitors. Don't hesitate to try Dropispy for spying on your competitors' ads.

BrandMentions

BrandMentions is a social network and search engine spy software that allows you to search for specific terms on the Internet. As an e-tailer, this tool will allow you to have an idea of everything that is being done on the Internet that is related to your product. 

Let's see how it works. You simply type in a search term (it can be a keyword or a company name) and the tool does a search for you. You will discover what is being said about that specific topic across the web, especially on the networks. You can have publications, hashtags

BrandMentions is therefore suitable for companies that want to have the maximum information about their customers. 

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Meltwater

Meltwater is also a social network spy software that you can use to spy on social networks and analyze your competitors' presence . It is a tool that is widely used by social network managers to get inspiration on current trending topics. This tool can be used by both beginners and advanced users. 

Meltwater offers intuitive and customizable monitoring dashboards thanks to its highly intuitive interface. The biggest social networks such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube are covered by the tool. When you search for a topic, you will therefore have a global view of everything that is being said about the topic on your website. 

Once you've compiled the most relevant research, you can turn it into detailed reports to help you refine and improve your KPIs, or convert it into easy-to-understand visuals to present to your employees.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is not only a social media monitoring software; it also monitors relevant conversations (comments under posts) on social media and provides relevant information.

With Hootsuite, you can, for example, set up special followings for a certain topic or brand to stay on top of what's being said about it on social networks. You can also analyze your performance on social media and compare your results to your competitors. This can help you spot trends and patterns and optimize your social media strategies . You also get filters to optimize your results. You can filter by keyword, language and even location. 

How to set up a spying campaign on social networks?

We have just seen above the importance of spying on competitors on social networks and the tools you can use to effectively spy on your competitors. We will now see how you can set up a campaign to spy on your competitors in order to collect as much information as possible about them. 

Here are 4 steps to follow. 

Choice of the spying tool

As you will have understood, to succeed in spying on your competitors, you must use spying tools. They will allow you to go faster in your data collection and especially to have relevant information. In the previous chapters, we have discussed the best spying tools for networks that you can use. 

Depending on your field of activity and your goals, you can choose from the tools we have listed above. If, for example, you are more concerned about your competitors' ads, you might want to use Minea for your spying .

Summary of keywords

Keywords are the terms you will use in your searches to find your competitors. You must now think like a customer who wants to buy a product from your brand. 

This will enable you to identify potential terms or keywords they can use to find your competitors' products. These may include: 

• Name of the company
• Product name
• Name of the persons in charge 
• The slogans
• The hashtags

Once you have all this information, you can now set up your campaign in the spy tool you have chosen. 

Setting up the campaign

Setting up a spying campaign can vary depending on the tool you use. But generally, you can first save your search parameters. The search parameters are in fact all the criteria, keywords that you enter in the spy tool to find information on your competitors.

The advantage of saving these settings is that you won't have to enter them every time you search. All you have to do is use your backup. If you use a tool like HootSuite that allows you to set up alerts, you can use them to further improve your spying on your competitors. 

For example, you can set up alerts and receive notifications every time your competitors post new publications on social networks. 

Data analysis and decision making

Data analysis is the most important step in social network spying. It is only data analysis that will give you all the information you are looking for about your competitors. You must be able to read the information and identify the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities of your competitors.

For example, while reading the data collected on your competitors' publications, you notice that the ads made in the afternoon benefit from more engagement with their community, because it is during these periods that potential customers are online. Indeed, if you aspire to sell the same product as them, you must take this into account and put your publications online in the afternoon. Hence the importance of spying on the social networks of the competition. 

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Espionner les réseaux sociaux de la concurrence: Que retenir?

Spying on your competitors is a key part of any marketing strategy. As a dropshipper, it is very important that you know how to set up a good spying plan to get the maximum information about your competitors. This will prevent you from wasting time repeating the same mistakes as your competitors. 

For e-tailers or dropshippers who want to spy on their competitors' ads, Minea is the best tool you can use.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you keep up with the competition?

Spying on your competitors basically depends on your industry and your goals. You can spy on your competitors' stores to see what products they sell best or spy on their social networks to learn more about the different content strategies they use to keep their audience engaged. 

How do I view ads on Facebook?

To see the ads made by your competitors on Facebook, you can use the Minea ad spy tool.

Why is it important to keep an eye on what competitors are doing?

Spying on your competitors gives you ideas to improve your company's various sales and acquisition strategies. Remember, there will always be someone doing better than you. Indeed, you should not see your competitors as a threat, but rather as levers that will allow you to fine-tune your strategies.