As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly analyse your competitors' social media activity.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 1 hour until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open each competitor's public social profile and record the profile link, platform, visible follower or subscriber count and the period you want to compare.
   2. Gather a consistent sample of each competitor's recent public posts, including the post date, text, media type, visible reactions, comments, shares, views where shown and any call to action.
   3. Export the data where the platform allows it, or paste the copied posts and profile notes into a document, removing private information and keeping the source link beside each item.
   4. Paste the prompt and source material into a chatbot, then ask it to analyse only the supplied evidence and separate observations from inferences.
   5. Compare the drafted tables against the original profiles and exports, checking every quoted post, date, count and claimed pattern, and delete findings that cannot be traced to a source.
   6. Use the evidence-backed opportunities to choose a small content test, then record the hypothesis, audience, measure and review point before publishing.

   Prompt

   Analyse the competitor social media data below for [BUSINESS NAME] in the UK [MARKET OR INDUSTRY]. Use only the information I provide and clearly label any inference. Do not invent posts, dates, engagement figures, audiences, campaign results or platform features. If a figure or fact is missing, say that it is missing.
   
   Competitors and profile links:
   [PASTE COMPETITOR NAMES AND PUBLIC PROFILE LINKS]
   
   Source data, exports or copied posts:
   [PASTE THE DATA HERE]
   
   Our business and objective:
   [DESCRIBE OUR BUSINESS, TARGET CUSTOMERS AND THE DECISION THIS ANALYSIS SHOULD INFORM]
   
   Produce:
   1. A table for each competitor showing the platforms covered, posting frequency where the data supports it, recurring content themes, formats, calls to action, visible engagement patterns and notable changes over time.
   2. A comparison table separating observed facts from your interpretation.
   3. Three to five evidence-backed opportunities for our business, with the supporting competitor posts or data beside each one.
   4. Tactics we should not copy, explaining why the evidence is insufficient or the tactic may not fit us.
   5. A short test plan with a hypothesis, proposed content, audience, success measure and review point for each recommended opportunity.
   6. A list of missing data and questions I should answer before making a major marketing decision.
   
   Quote or identify the source post, profile or supplied row for every important claim. Do not rank competitors unless you state the criteria and have enough comparable data. Finish with a plain-English summary of what the evidence does and does not show.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.