Should I “Like” my competitor’s Facebook page?

Sun-tzu, Chinese general and military strategist (~400 BC) said: “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”.

Maybe that is a bit harsh to call the other local florist on Facebook your enemy, but you know what I mean. Depending on the number of “likers” on your competitors page, they may not even know that you have liked it (remember a page CANNOT like a page, only a personal profile can like a page).

You can see a complete list (if you are the page admin) of everyone who likes your page by clicking see all on the box of “likers” on the wall, but you can’t download it or search in it, if you want to see if someone is there then you have to scroll through them all (they are listed in order of when they liked your page). It’s fine if the page only has 25 people liking it, but get over 100 and the job gets big, get over 1,000 and it gets huge.

Let’s look at the pros and cons for liking your competitors page…

PROS:

• You get to see what they are promoting and when.
• You can see how often they post.
• You will see the interaction and engagement they have with their fans.
• You may be able to “steal” some ideas.
• You will be sent updates from the page, so could potentially be the first to hear what they are doing.
• You can hide their posts if they get annoying.

CONS:

• You spend so much time checking out what they are up to that your page suffers.

You may have guessed from this that yes I believe that you should “Like” your competitor’s page, but you should not get hung up on it, it is like anything that they do, you need to focus on what works for you and your customers. What is your USP (unique selling point)? Focus on that, and try to integrate that into what you are doing on the social media networks.

If your USP is customer service then set a benchmark of when you want to get back to people who talk to you on Facebook or Twitter, etc. You could say we will get back to them within an hour of them posting, whatever you decide you have to live it.

Don’t spend the 30 minutes a day you spend on Facebook checking up on the competition, instead spend it building up your page and your relationships with your customers.

On a final note, if you find that a competitor has “Liked” your page you can find them in the list of “likers” and remove them, and if you are feeling very mean ban them permanently!

Lara Solomon is the founder of Mocks, mobile phone socks www.MyMocks.com, founder of Social Rabbit – your guide in the world of social media www.Facebook.com/SocialRabbit and author of ‘Brand New Day – the Highs & Lows of Starting a Small Business’. Lara’s business LaRoo was the winner of the NSW Telstra Micro-Business Award in 2008.