There are plenty of data that is available on LinkedIn that can give you valuable insight into the actions and state of your competition. Viewing and analyzing their company page is a great place to start but this information is only as thorough as the company is willing to be.

1. USING LINKEDIN FOR
COMPETITIVE INTELLIGENCE
For additional information about Competitive Intelligence
please visit www.Intelligence2act.com

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THERE ARE PLENTY OF DATA THAT IS AVAILABLE
ON LINKEDIN THAT CAN GIVE YOU VALUABLE
INSIGHT INTO THE ACTIONS AND STATE OF YOUR
COMPETITION.
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Viewing and analyzing their company page is a great place to start but
this information is only as thorough as the company is willing to be.
Taking the competitive intelligence (CI) gathering a step further you can
view and analyze all of the people that are affiliated with company and
track the progression of the past and present employees to infer
business information.
You can also use the forum to reach out to and talk to the ex-employees
directly and they may be willing to tell you more information than you
realize. Although, direct information is more valuable than the
inferences that can be made from scouting LinkedIn, when you add this
data into all of your other competitive intelligence it can fill in the gaps.
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The first step when using LinkedIn for competitive intelligence is to
directly analyze their company page.
This will give you a great starting block as to how much information that
they are sharing online and their general state of adoption of LinkedIn,
which will usually correlate with their adoption of all social media.
Once you have this general impression you can start doing more
advanced searches to see all of the people that currently work for
them, as well as any ex-employees.
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Watching key management positions as they change or become vacant
will give you an idea of how they are working as a team.
If there is frequent turnover then you can assume that there is a
problem. In the same token if you notice that one of the key managers
started with a new company without a replacement showing up, this
may indicate that they left on bad terms or that your competitor is
struggling to fill this position.
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Watching the growth or decline of the number of employees in various
departments can also give you an idea of the strategies that they are
trying to execute, or the troubles that they are facing.
By tracking these numbers you can be aware if your competition is
investing in research and innovation or trying to expand their market
share with an increase in their sales force.
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Remember that these are just indicators and as with any competitive
intelligence gathering it is best to corroborate your data with
information from multiple sources.
Tracking not only the departments but then drilling down into the
specific involvement of each individual will give you an idea of their
knowledge and use of LinkedIn.
As a general rule anyone with less than one hundred connections is not
using it effectively, and anyone with more than 500 connections is a
pro.
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Using the information on that is freely available on LinkedIn will
supplement your competitive intelligence efforts by filling in the gaps.
The information over time will provide you with invaluable insight into
what the company is trying to accomplish and help you to leverage their
shortcomings.
Use LinkedIn as a free way to round out your overall CI strategy so that
you can gain a competitive advantage.
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9. For additional information about Competitive Intelligence
please visit www.Intelligence2act.com