Instagram is very fast-growing social media and it is a very crucial social media platform for most of the businesses out there.
Even for you if you want to build on your personal brand.
So, when you are making strategy for your clients’ Instagram account or your own Instagram account. The first thing you need to do is competitors research.
Finding answers for the questions like…
What are they doing?
What are they posting?
When are they posting?
What type of content are they posting?
What is their engagement rate?
And many more.
But, what is the first step to do that?
Find your competitors Instagram Accounts. Right?
So, how to find Instagram competitors in 2020?
There are many tools available for you to use and do this task. But, sometimes you couldn’t find the right tools. Sometimes you can’t purchase those tools.
What is the other option?
Do it yourself. (it’s not much time consuming at all)
Well, I also have to do it as I am also a Digital Marketer. I prefer this method over tools for small/local clients. It’s more effective to find those local competitors this way.
There is a total of 3 Steps in it.
Too lazy to read whole article? Check out my Instagram Post.
1) Use Google
Search for the people/brands in your industry/niche. e.g. If your business is related to Fashion Clothing then what you can search is “Fashion Brand in India”.
You can also do a local search “Fashion Brands in “.
To take it to the Advance level you can find some more relative keywords to your business and search for the people/brands with an already good online presence.
If you are selling some products you can search for businesses selling similar products in your business area. Same with the services you can find businesses providing similar services.
After that what you need to do is visit their website. Most of the websites put their social media handles on their website and that’s all you got their Instagram Account. you can now do your detailed research on them.
2) Popular Hashtags
If you are creating an Instagram account then you must know some of your general and very popular hashtags.
All you need to do is go to the “Instagram search” and search for that hashtag. You will see a whole page with lots of popular posts.
e.g. in our previous fashion clothing business, we can use a hashtag like “#fashionindia”.
Here on the hashtag page, you need to find the image/content which is similar to yours.
That’s all click on the image check who posted it and whoa. you got your next competitor.
And once you are on that hashtag page you will find more popular and good hashtags which your competitors might be using.
3) Account Suggestions
Hey, Good work. You have found your competitors. Generally, you will find 5-7 competitors easily with the above two methods. But, if you want more then this 3rd method can help you.
It doesn’t need any extra steps. It actually from Instagram.
After you are on the profile of your competitors. You will see that there Instagram suggests similar accounts to follow.
That’s your treasure trove. You need to check those account and see which accounts are more similar to your account and list them down. This method is and like dessert after a meal.
Conclusion
After doing these simple 3 steps you can easily find 10-12 competitors you can dive deep in the research you want to find more. But, I am not suggesting you to directly copy your competitors for better growth of your account. Doing competitors research is a part to know your audience better you should not just focus on it and create your growth strategy revolving around your competitors only.
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