LinkedIn Knows Your Competitors: Discover How to Leverage That!

Unearth the competitive intelligence treasures of LinkedIn and build a monumental program for business growth. Start your journey today.

Maeva Conley
Aug 17, 2023

Before You Begin Using LinkedIn For Competitive Intelligence

Before you set off on your LinkedIn exploration to uncover competitive intelligence, it's important to make sure your very first brick - your personal LinkedIn profile - is sturdy, engaging and skillfully chiseled. You won’t use your company's profile here.

Operating from your personal account is like wearing the appropriate attire in our metaphorical pyramid construction project. It makes you a credible explorer as you delve into the depths of LinkedIn's vast landscape. A profile that's been meticulously carved with the following elements:

A professional photo: Use high-quality headshots that convey approachability and professionalism
A compelling headline: Headlines should be client-centric, showcasing how you can add value to prospects
A compelling summary: Emphasize your niche expertise, spotlight your success stories, and clearly describe your value proposition
Relevant work experience: Highlight achievements and past successes that add credibility to your name
Endorsements and recommendations: Make sure you have at least one or two positive testimonials from colleagues, clients, or managers to validate your trustworthiness.

You can give your profile even more depth by regularly posting thought-provoking content such as fresh-off-the-press articles and new videos. A robust, active profile shows authority and builds trust.

How to Succeed at Competitive Intelligence on LinkedIn

Once you've sculpted a resonant LinkedIn profile, build your LinkedIn competitive intelligence blueprint in four steps:

Define your objectives: Determine the specific objectives you want to address in your competitive intelligence report. For example, will you hone in on your competitors' product offerings, marketing strategies, key personnel, recent announcements, or industry trends they are capitalizing on?
Collect team requests: Survey all relevant departments in your organization and assess what questions these departments are trying to answer.
Identify competitors: Compile a list of your main competitors in the market. You likely have a pretty good idea of the main competitors, but LinkedIn's search functionality is also invaluable here. Look for companies that offer similar products or services and have a significant presence on LinkedIn.
Figure out how you’ll track and share data: Will you use spreadsheets, Battlecards, or other data collection tools? Is your sales team committed to using them? If not, you’ll likely lose valuable intel, and your competitive intelligence program won’t be complete. Get their buy-in first!

Now it’s time to make use of the modern functions of LinkedIn (we're building a modern pyramid, after all!), depending on what competitive intelligence data you are looking to collect.

HR/Compensation Team Insights from LinkedIn

Assessing the activity of HR and compensation teams on LinkedIn will give you direct insight into your competitor’s hiring practices, which in turn will help you assess the health of your competitor’s business.

You can find information about HR and compensation teams on Linkedin in a few ways.
First, you can look for competitor job openings on LinkedIn. Navigate to the “Jobs” tab at the top-middle part of the page. Click “Jobs” and enter your competitor's name into the search bar.

Once you click the return button, you land on the results page. If your competitor has a job opening, click on that result.

Pro Tip: If you want access to deeper LinkedIn insights, you must have a pro or business account. This unlocks features like “Meet the hiring team.”

Take a look at the first column of information. Some companies choose to give a lot away in their job listings. You might even see the salary range for open positions, the number of employees working at the company, what skills they are looking to hire for, etc.

Next, if you have a business or professional LinkedIn account, you may see “Meet the hiring team” in a box below the basic job description.

Click on the hiring team member’s profile. Depending on how unlocked their profile is, you can gain a ton of insight into their business practices, how they view hiring, how they get candidates in the door, and more.

So, the HR/compensation team data you collect might look like this:

Competitor A:

2,000 employees
Number of openings: 5
Salary range: $45,000/year to $250,000/year

Competitor B:

1,500-1,700 employees
Number of openings: 17
Salary range: $50,000-$150,000

Competitor C:

500-750 employees
Number of openings: 3
Salary range: $75,000- $300,000

… And so on. You can manually enter all this information into a spreadsheet for an initial competitive analysis.

Gathering Marketing and Brand Insights from LinkedIn

Marketing is the richest area of competitive intelligence data on LinkedIn. Some of the ways to use the professional social media platform to gain valuable insights into competitor brand image and marketing strategies include:

Using Advanced Search
LinkedIn's advanced search feature is your trusty multi tool for competitive intelligence. You can use targeted keywords, filters, and other specific criteria to narrow your search and uncover niche insights into your competition.
Analyze and follow company pages and updates
LinkedIn company pages provide a wealth of competitive insights for your marketing teams. By following competitors’ company pages, your team can stay informed about and respond to:
- Real-time updates on your competitors' announcements
- Product launches
- Partnerships
- Events
- Content updates - individual updates and trends can point to a new focus.

LinkedIn Insights for Executive Teams

Start your excavation with a list of c-suite positions you plan to focus on (i.e. CEO, CTO, CMO, etc.). This will keep you focused.

What are you looking for here?
Knowing decision-makers' movements empowers your organization to make more informed, strategic decisions regarding investments, partnerships, roadmaps, and more. And many top leaders invest heavily in their LinkedIn presence, making it a veritable goldmine of competitive insights.

Pro tips:

Monitor updates and changes - Keep an eye on updates to executive profiles. Look for changes in their job titles, company affiliations, or any new achievements they have added to their profiles. This information can be valuable for understanding recent developments.
Analyze network connections - Examine the executives' LinkedIn connections to identify shared or mutual connections. This can give you an idea of their professional networks and potential partnerships.

Use LinkedIn to Track Competitors’ Events

LinkedIn is a popular channel for spreading the word about company events via LinkedIn Events Pages.

These events can give you insight into a company’s messaging, new service/product offerings, and other marketing tactics they leverage to attract customers.

Competitor LinkedIn Insights for Product and Innovation Teams

Using LinkedIn for competitive intelligence for product and innovation teams allows you to keep an eye on their business-building efforts.

This information can help you refine your product development and marketing efforts, identify market opportunities, and help you craft a stellar go-to-market strategy.

How to Compile Competitive Intelligence Data from LinkedIn

Competitive intelligence analysis often churns out a veritable mountain of data, and you may at this point feel more overwhelmed than when you started. But remember that each little insight is a brick in your competitive intelligence pyramid of glory. You just have to stack them in the right places and for the right people.

Collect Competitive Intelligence Data From LinkedIn and Compile It - The Easy Way

Gathering this data manually takes a lot of work. If you decide to take this on using analog techniques, you might end up with a mess of a Google Spreadsheet.

Next Steps: Using LinkedIn for Competitive Intelligence

As you stand at the base of your metaphorical pyramid, scanning the vast potential of LinkedIn's landscape for competitive intelligence gems, remember — like every towering pyramid, every worthwhile endeavor starts with a single, carefully-placed brick.