How to use social listening for competitive analysis

Available as an add-on

Social listening in Vista Social helps you go beyond monitoring your own profiles. With the right setup, you can track what people are saying about your competitors and uncover insights that could shape smarter strategies for your brand.

Before jumping into competitive analysis, it’s helpful to understand the basics of creating a Listener in Vista Social. (If you’re new, check out Social Listening with Vista Social for a quick walkthrough.)

This guide will show you how to set up competitive listening in Vista Social and share tips for getting the most out of it.

Note

This listener setup requires an external listener add-on. You can also set up a listener for your own profiles, which comes with your plan. Learn more here.

Need

In this setup, we'll use "Burger King" as an example.

Picking your sources

When setting up a competitor listener, selecting the right sources ensures you capture meaningful conversations. Here are some things to consider:

Where your competitor is most active
Think about which platforms your competitor uses most. For example, Burger King is active on Twitter/X for campaigns and on Facebook/Instagram for promotions.
Where the audience is talking
Sometimes the most valuable insights come from communities, not official brand pages. Platforms like Reddit, X, and Threads often highlight unfiltered customer opinions.
Hashtag-heavy networks
For networks like Instagram, listeners work best when you include campaign or product hashtags (e.g., #Whopper, #BurgerKingFries).

Building your keyword variations

When setting up your listener, you can combine brand name variations with product keywords to capture a fuller picture of the conversation. In this example, the query is designed to catch mentions of “fries,” “burger,” “chicken,” or “nuggets” whenever they appear together with Burger King references such as BK, b king, bk’s, or burger king’s.

This setup helps you track not just direct mentions of the brand, but also discussions about its most recognizable menu items.

Understanding your listener results

Once your competitor listener begins collecting data, you can analyze the results to uncover trends and opportunities. In this Burger King example, here’s what the data tells us:

Results and Impressions

The dashboard shows the total number of results, possible impressions, unique authors, and sentiment. This helps you understand how much conversation your competitor is driving and how far those conversations may be reaching.

For Burger King, the listener picked up 95 results and 1.1k possible impressions, showing the scale of audience engagement during the selected date range.

Sentiment Breakdown

The positive and negative sentiment charts reveal how people feel about your competitor’s brand and products.

In this case, Instagram leads positive sentiment, while X (Twitter) carries a larger share of negative mentions. This shows where your competitor is winning goodwill and where they may be struggling with perception.

Network Share of Voice

The results by network show where conversations are happening.

Burger King mentions were most common on Instagram and Reddit, with additional chatter on Threads and Twitter/X. Knowing which platforms matter most for your competitor lets you prioritize your own listening and content strategy in those spaces.

Deeper competitive insights

Vista Social’s Competitor Performance Report offers an in-depth analysis of how your brand stacks up against selected competitors across key metrics such as followers, publishing behavior, and engagement.

By combining these insights with social listening, you gain a comprehensive view of your competitive landscape — from what audiences are saying about your competitors to how those brands perform in comparison to your own.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Social Listening for Competitive Analysis?
A: It allows you to track and analyze what people are saying about your competitors across social platforms, helping you uncover trends, sentiment, and opportunities to improve your strategy.

Q: What do I need to set up a competitor listener?
A: You’ll need the external listener add-on. Then, choose the right sources (platforms), define relevant keywords (brand names and product terms), and include variations to capture more conversations.

Q: What insights can I get from a competitor listener?
A: You can analyze metrics like total mentions, impressions, sentiment (positive or negative), and where conversations are happening, helping you understand competitor performance and audience perception.

Need further help?

If you have any questions or need additional help, feel free to contact our awesome support team. We are here to assist you! 💙

Related Reading:

Creating custom analytics reports

How to run or schedule reports

Competitor Analysis Report