As a social media marketing expert, I‘m always on the lookout for tools that can give me an edge in creating high-performing content and campaigns. While there are many great social media analytics platforms out there, I‘ve found that Similarweb provides uniquely valuable insights that are a perfect complement to my social media toolkit.
In this in-depth review, I‘ll share how I use Similarweb to supercharge my social media marketing efforts, with real examples, tips, and perspective drawn from my experience. Whether you‘re an in-house social media manager, agency professional, or consultant, I think you‘ll find Similarweb to be an incredibly useful addition to your tech stack.
Why Similarweb is a Social Media Marketer‘s Secret Weapon
At its core, social media marketing is about understanding your audience and giving them content that resonates. But in today‘s noisy social landscape, cutting through the clutter requires a deep, data-driven understanding of your niche and competitors.
This is where Similarweb shines. By providing comprehensive traffic and engagement data for any website, Similarweb gives you crucial context about the digital ecosystem your brand operates in.
Some of the key social media use cases for Similarweb include:
- Benchmarking your website‘s social media referral traffic against competitors
- Analyzing the audience demographics and interests of top players in your industry
- Uncovering trending topics and content that are getting social engagement
- Identifying influencers and partnership opportunities based on audience overlap
- Optimizing your social content strategy by learning from the best in your space
The beautiful thing about Similarweb is that it aggregates data that would be incredibly time-consuming to piece together from other sources. Rather than manually researching dozens of competitors‘ social profiles, you can instantly see (and compare) the big picture.
How Similarweb Enhances Social Media Analytics
Now, you might be thinking: "I already use tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, or Buffer for social media management and analytics. Why do I need Similarweb?"
While those are all excellent platforms that I personally use daily, I‘ve found that Similarweb unlocks an extra level of insight that takes my social media game to new heights. Here‘s how:
1. Evaluate Your Social Traffic vs. Competitors
Using Similarweb‘s traffic analysis features, you can benchmark your website‘s metrics against your top competitors. This is incredibly helpful context for evaluating your social media performance.
For example, let‘s say my website gets 10,000 visits per month from social media. That might sound decent, but with Similarweb I can see that my top competitor gets 50,000 social visits per month. Suddenly, I have a much clearer picture of how I stack up, and how much room there is to grow.
Similarweb also shows you the percentage of traffic each website gets from social media compared to other channels like organic search, referrals, and advertising. If the competitors significantly outpacing me in terms of revenue are getting 20%+ of their traffic from social media, it‘s a good indicator that I should consider upping my social media investments.
2. Dissect Competitors‘ Social Media Referral Traffic
Similarweb doesn‘t just show you topline social traffic though. You can also see a detailed breakdown of which social networks are driving the most referral traffic to any website.
For instance, I might find that my top competitor gets 35% of its social traffic from YouTube, 30% from Instagram, 25% from Facebook, and 10% from Twitter. Meanwhile, I get 60% of my social traffic from Twitter and only 5% from YouTube.
Instantly, I‘ve identified a big gap in my social strategy – I‘m likely underinvested in YouTube compared to where my audience is engaging in my niche. I can also click into each social network in Similarweb to see my competitor‘s top shared URLs on that platform, providing further inspiration for the types of content I might want to create.
3. Build Data-Driven Audience Personas
Understanding your target audience is Marketing 101, but it‘s easier said than done. With Similarweb‘s Audience Insights, you can take the guesswork out of persona development.
Simply plug in your website or a competitor‘s, and Similarweb will show you a wealth of information about that site‘s audience, including:
- Age and gender breakdowns
- Other websites the audience frequently visits
- Interests and topics the audience cares about
- Affinity categories (what the audience is more likely to consume compared to the average internet user)
Instead of making assumptions, you can use this data to craft buyer personas that reflect actual digital behaviors. You might find that the audience you thought was Millennial women is actually more Gen Z, or that there‘s a substantial segment that‘s interested in sustainability and eco-friendly products.
Equipped with these insights, you can create social media content that speaks directly to your audience‘s real interests, driving engagement and action.
4. Find Trending Content Ideas
Every social media marketer has experienced the pressure of figuring out what to post next. We all want to share content that our audience will love, but inspiration doesn‘t always come easy (especially when you‘re trying to feed the daily content beast).
Here again, Similarweb comes to the rescue with its Industry Analysis features. By selecting your industry and location, you can instantly see data like:
- Top websites in the industry by social traffic
- Fast-growing websites and their top social content
- Popular industry articles getting the most social engagement
- Trending topics and search terms in the niche
For example, if I‘m working in the fitness space, I can see which fitness content sites are blowing up on social media this month. I can drill into their top socially-engaged articles to understand what topics are resonating. And I can adapt these insights to inform my own social content calendar.
5. Discover Influencers & Partnership Opportunities
Finally, Similarweb offers some really cool tools for identifying influencers and brands that your audience engages with.
Under the Audience Analysis tab, you can see other websites that your audience frequently visits. This provides valuable insight into their media consumption habits and adjacent interests. If I see that my audience also spends a lot of time on a particular blog or commerce site, those could be great targets for partnerships or influencer outreach.
The Audience Overlap tool visualizes the common audiences different websites share. You can enter up to 5 domains and see the percentage of overlapping visitors between them. This helps you find potential partners with high affinity to your brand. The more audience overlap, the higher probability of a partnership driving mutual value.
Integrating Similarweb with Social Analytics Platforms
Now that we‘ve covered the key ways Similarweb can level up your social media marketing, you might be wondering how it fits into your existing workflow.
The good news is that Similarweb integrates with several popular social media analytics and management platforms, making it easy to merge these insights into your daily processes. Some key integrations include:
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Hootsuite – You can add Similarweb as a stream in your Hootsuite dashboard, allowing you to view metrics like social traffic and referrals alongside your scheduled posts and mentions.
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Sprout Social – Similarweb data can be exported to CSV and uploaded to Sprout Social, so you can track your website‘s metrics in Custom Reports.
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Google Data Studio – Similarweb has a connector for Google Data Studio, allowing you to create custom dashboards mixing Similarweb and social platform data.
Even if you don‘t use a platform with a direct integration, Similarweb makes it easy to export data to Excel or CSV. From there, you can merge it with your other social analytics to create reports and dashboards.
Expert Tips for Getting the Most Out of Similarweb
As with any tool, there‘s a bit of an art to using Similarweb effectively. Here are a few pro tips I‘ve learned:
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Focus on the right competitors. Similarweb‘s competitive analysis is only as good as the competitors you put in. Use the "Similars & Competitors" feature to find the sites that best match your niche and audience.
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Look for trends and anomalies. Don‘t just look at a single month of data. Use Similarweb‘s time range feature to spot traffic trends and outlier spikes in social engagement.
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Segment by location. If you operate in multiple countries, use Similarweb‘s country filters to get location-specific insights. A social platform that‘s big in the U.S. might be less popular in Europe or Asia.
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Monitor emerging players. Use the "Fastest Growing Websites" feature in your industry analysis to catch up-and-coming competitors.
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Complement with social listening. Similarweb data is a great quantitative complement to qualitative social media listening. Use a tool like Hootsuite Insights or Sprout Social‘s Listening to understand the context behind the trends you‘re seeing in Similarweb.
The ROI of Similarweb for Social Marketers
As with any tool, it‘s important to consider the return on investment. At a starting price of $199/month, Similarweb isn‘t the cheapest tool out there. But in my experience, the insights and time-savings it delivers more than justify the cost.
Consider a few of the ways Similarweb delivers ROI:
- Identifying high-performing content that can be adapted into social posts, saving hours of manual research and guesswork
- Spotting competitors‘ most effective social channels, so you can prioritize your own efforts for maximum impact
- Uncovering partnership opportunities that can drive a high volume of qualified traffic and new customers
- Crafting data-driven personas that allow you to create more relevant, engaging social content
When you add it all up, the benefits of Similarweb go straight to your bottom line. Even a single insight that helps you create a viral social media post or high-converting influencer campaign can easily cover the cost of the tool.
The Verdict: Is Similarweb the Best Tool for Social Media Marketers?
So, after all this, what‘s my expert take? In short, yes – I absolutely believe Similarweb is one of the best tools available for serious social media marketers.
No tool is perfect, and Similarweb does have some limitations. The data is based on a sample panel and modeling, so there is some margin of error. And like any analytics platform, it requires some skill to parse the data and find actionable insights.
But in terms of breadth, depth, and actionability of data, Similarweb is simply unmatched. I‘ve been able to replace hours of manual research and guesswork with just a few clicks in Similarweb. The competitive and industry analysis features, in particular, are game-changers for social media strategizing.
If you‘re a data-driven social media marketer looking to take your results to the next level, I can‘t recommend Similarweb highly enough. It‘s an essential part of my toolkit, and I believe it can be for you too.
