Social media competitive analysis template, filled in
A copyable social media competitive analysis template to compare rivals platform by platform: followers, cadence, engagement rate, formats, themes and ads.
A social media competitive analysis template is a table that puts each competitor's accounts side by side, platform by platform, so you can see who posts what, how often, and whether it is landing. Copy the one below, fill it once a month, and finish with one line saying what you will do differently.
The social media competitive analysis template
One row per competitor per platform. Copy it into a doc or a spreadsheet.
| Competitor | Platform | Followers | 30 day change | Posts a week | Engagement rate | Top formats | Top 3 themes | Best post this month | Live ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Underneath the table, add three lines:
What changed since last month:
What it suggests they are doing:
What we will do (owner, date):
The table is the evidence. The three lines are the point.
How to fill in each column
Followers and 30 day change. Note the number on the same day each month. The change matters far more than the total, because totals are history and can be bought, while a jump in one month means something happened.
Posts a week. Count posts in the last 28 days and divide by four. Count feed posts, Reels and videos; leave out Stories unless you check daily. Posting frequency is the most useful number in the whole template, because it shows investment before results do.
Engagement rate. Use one formula for every competitor:
(likes + comments on last 10 posts)
÷ 10 ÷ followers × 100
From outside an account you only see what the platform shows publicly, usually likes and comments, sometimes shares and views. Saves and reach are private. Some accounts also hide like counts, which Instagram has allowed since 2021; for those, use comments only and mark the cell. Do not mix your own numbers with a tool's, because many tools divide by reach or impressions instead of followers.
Top formats. Short video, carousel, single image, text, live. A rough split is enough: "Reels 60%, carousels 30%". A change in the mix is a strategy change.
Top 3 themes. In your own words: tutorials, customer stories, behind the scenes, offers, founder posts, memes. Three, not ten.
Best post this month. The link, plus why you think it worked. Usually it is the first line or the first two seconds.
Live ads. The count of ads running now, from the Meta Ad Library for Facebook and Instagram, and the TikTok Ad Library for TikTok. TikTok describes its library as covering ads targeted at the European Economic Area, so a rival advertising only in the US may look silent there. For LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest and the rest, the guide to every ad library lists where to look.
A filled example
Say you run a small online plant shop, and the two rivals your customers mention most are Leafwell and Canopy & Co. Both are hypothetical, and so are the numbers.
| Competitor | Platform | Followers | 30 day change | Posts a week | Engagement rate | Top formats | Top 3 themes | Best post this month | Live ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leafwell | 18,400 | +310 | 5 | 1.9% | Reels 60%, carousels 30% | Care tips, repotting, subscriber offers | Reel: three signs you are overwatering | 6 on Meta | |
| Leafwell | TikTok | 9,100 | +1,200 | 3 | 4.2% | Talking to camera | Plant rescues, packing orders | Reviving a supermarket reject plant | 0 |
| Canopy & Co | 42,000 | -150 | 1 | 0.4% | Single product photos | New arrivals, discount codes | Product shot with a code | 14 on Meta | |
| Canopy & Co | TikTok | No account |
How the engagement rates were worked out: Leafwell's last ten Instagram posts averaged 300 likes and 50 comments, so 350 ÷ 18,400 × 100 = 1.9%. Canopy & Co's averaged 150 likes and 18 comments, so 168 ÷ 42,000 × 100 = 0.4%.
And the three lines underneath:
What changed: Leafwell TikTok +1,200 in
a month; Canopy down to 1 post a week.
What it suggests: Leafwell is building
an education audience on TikTok. Canopy
has moved effort from organic to paid.
What we will do: test 4 plant-rescue
videos in November (Sam). Read
Canopy's 14 ads for their offer (Jo).
Notice what the table does not say. Canopy & Co has more than twice Leafwell's Instagram followers and is the weaker account on every organic number. That is why the follower column is the least important one in the template.
An Instagram competitor analysis template
If Instagram is the only platform that matters in your market, a narrower template catches more detail:
| Account | Followers | Feed posts a week | Reels share | Avg likes, last 10 | Avg comments, last 10 | Engagement rate | Link in bio goes to | Pinned posts | Collabs this month | Live Meta ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Three of these columns are easy to overlook and often the most revealing. Link in bio shows what they are selling this month. Pinned posts show what they want every new visitor to see first. Collabs show which creators and partners they are paying or courting. The full method is in the Instagram competitor analysis guide.
How often, and what to do with it
Monthly is enough. About twenty minutes per competitor, on the same day each month so the 30 day change is comparable.
Read the table for patterns rather than winners. Frequency up while engagement falls usually means a new junior hire or an agency on volume. Organic going quiet while ads rise means they have moved budget. A sudden new theme, especially alongside new pages on their website, often means a launch. The reading of these signals is covered properly in monitoring competitor social media.
Filling it with less effort
Our own Figo records each competitor's Instagram and Facebook posts and their Meta and TikTok ads every week, which covers the posts, themes and ads columns for those platforms, and sends the changes in a Monday briefing. Ours, so judge accordingly. It does not cover TikTok organic posts, LinkedIn, X, YouTube channels or Pinterest, and it does not calculate this template's engagement rate, so for those you still fill the row by hand.
Questions people ask
What is a good engagement rate to compare against?
There is no single benchmark worth trusting, because rates vary by platform, account size and formula. Compare competitors with each other using the same formula, and track each one against its own past months.
Which competitors should I include?
The three to five your customers actually compare you with, plus one account outside your category that your audience follows closely. That last one is often where the best format ideas come from.
Can I see a competitor's Instagram insights?
No. Reach, saves, profile visits and follower demographics are private to the account. Any tool that shows them for someone else's account is estimating.
Should I count Stories?
Only if you check daily, because Stories disappear after 24 hours unless saved to Highlights. For a monthly template, record the Highlights they keep pinned instead.
See it on your own competitors
Figo checks their ads, pages, rankings and reviews every week, then tells you what to do in plain words. Set up in two minutes.
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