Your view on social media and competitors - be honest!
Discussion
Just had a LinkedIn connection request from a direct competitor (again). It's no real issue but I'm just wondering what the mindset is in requesting this? This is a common theme - especially on Twitter, FB etc? It's highly unlikely to be about any collaboration 'how can I help your business' as we are always pitching for similar gigs and are always in competition. Its all cool as we win gigs more suited to us and they get gigs more suited to them - there's is no paranoia fear or animosity. It's just I'd rather interact with clients and leads and prospects! And I'd rather not tell them who most of my clients are - its the first bit of research you do when plotting to win more business after all
Personally I also have no interest in spoon feeding my competitors my social news feed, Twitter posts and updates on FB business page. I don't see any advantage in doing that so usually decline or ease them off. I have to say I have used such intel on a competitor to my advantage in the past and it definitely helped me secure one gig as I sensed what I saw as a weakness in a competitor, and this turned out to be a key point for the client. You can always search for social media for a company I know, but why instant notify it, direct to their inbox?
Maybe I'm too cagey/old school, which is why I ask what are your thoughts on interacting with competitors on social media - even though Kim Jong and Trump may be Twitter buddies by now
Personally I also have no interest in spoon feeding my competitors my social news feed, Twitter posts and updates on FB business page. I don't see any advantage in doing that so usually decline or ease them off. I have to say I have used such intel on a competitor to my advantage in the past and it definitely helped me secure one gig as I sensed what I saw as a weakness in a competitor, and this turned out to be a key point for the client. You can always search for social media for a company I know, but why instant notify it, direct to their inbox?
Maybe I'm too cagey/old school, which is why I ask what are your thoughts on interacting with competitors on social media - even though Kim Jong and Trump may be Twitter buddies by now
They hope to expand their network by having access to your network (so they can send more connection requests). Reject it 
A handy tip for Twitter is using lists to tame the fire hose of tweetfeed. If you only have a quick 5 mins you can filter it to just look at your list of 'Suppliers' 'Local Business Leaders' or 'Competitors' for example.
BUT... when you add someone to a list, they get notified. That's great to add someone to an ego-massaging 'Inspirational Businesses' list but you don't want to alert your competitors that you're monitoring them so set the list to 'Private' when creating it, they won't get notified & no-one else can see the contents of your list.Makes it easy to keep tabs - and it's surprising what info some businesses leak on Social by accident...
A handy tip for Twitter is using lists to tame the fire hose of tweetfeed. If you only have a quick 5 mins you can filter it to just look at your list of 'Suppliers' 'Local Business Leaders' or 'Competitors' for example.
BUT... when you add someone to a list, they get notified. That's great to add someone to an ego-massaging 'Inspirational Businesses' list but you don't want to alert your competitors that you're monitoring them so set the list to 'Private' when creating it, they won't get notified & no-one else can see the contents of your list.Makes it easy to keep tabs - and it's surprising what info some businesses leak on Social by accident...
You'll probably find they have some 'bright young thing' who is employed as a SM specialist and they are going to tell their employer how many more great new networking connections they have generated. Unfortunately that said 'bright young thing' is too stupid to realise the conflict of interest. Ignore it.
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