Companies that make decisions about their next steps will often benefit from competitive intelligence. Competitor intelligence is available from a wide variety of sources, and the creativity to find them is vital. Competitive intelligence services online are highlighted below. The Internet is full of tools for competitive intelligence, which has made the intelligence analyst’s job easier. Below are some vital competitive intelligence services.
Corporate or personal accounts on Twitter. Twitter has quickly become an essential source of competitive intelligence. Twitter accounts that belong directly to competitors, or that belong to anyone else tweeting about competitors, can provide a large amount of data. The intelligence available through Twitter can be transient and could in fact be removed, requiring careful monitoring.
LinkedIn membership. Companies leave a breadcrumb trail on LinkedIn about their organizational structures. The service provides a good level of detail about who is a competitor’s employee and how these employees interact structurally.
Yahoo Flickr. Flickr provides good competitive intelligence, although it can be laborious to find and retrieve. Flickr has often been used by employees to upload internal company images that they may consider personal.
Youtube. An intelligence analyst may need to spend more time on YouTube than traditional sources, as video content may need to be viewed or listened to manually. However, that shouldn’t stop analysts investigating YouTube information. YouTube videos are always a potentially useful source of information on the thinking of competitors. YouTube videos also often reveal information about upcoming marketing activities.
Online mapping tools. Visiting competing sites is often no longer necessary these days now that web maps like Google and Bing put this information online. Online mapping services can be used to obtain good images and other geographic Data Intelligence about a competitor’s key facilities. The slides in a competitive intelligence report can generally be enhanced with map images and photos.
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