The document provides numerous resources for conducting competitive research on other companies, including their websites, Crunchbase for funding and executive information, Google trends to compare search terms, social media pages on Facebook and Twitter, Glassdoor for reviews, LinkedIn for employee lists, and Google keyword planner to analyze search volumes. It also suggests tools like Alexa and SEMRush for traffic data, Buzzsumo for popular content, and Twitter searches to find information on employees and compensation levels.

1. Notes on Competitive Research
Talent 42, June 2015
@hverespej
 Corp
o Obviously, start with the company’s website
 Some companies have a full list of team members
 Additional info like open jobs, blog, etc.
o ($) PitchBook (http://pitchbook.com/)
 Lots of corporate info including execs, funding, etc.
 Related companies/competition
o Crunchbase (https://www.crunchbase.com/)
 General company overview
 Funding rounds w/ date, amount, and participants
 Acquisitions
 Competitors
o Google autocomplete (go to Google, type “snapchat vs”, and see auto-complete)
 Shows what Google users think of as competing/similar products/services
 Current news
o Buzzsumo (https://app.buzzsumo.com/top-content)
 See most active content about a topic across social networks
o Google News (https://news.google.com/)
 See recent news articles about the company
 Go beyond company name – e.g. “snapchat employee”
o Google Trends (www.google.com/trends)
 Go beyond company name – e.g. “snapchat jobs”
 Add search terms to compare with your company and/or others
 Social
o Facebook (https://www.facebook.com, search company name and open company page)
 Learn what the company is sharing w/ followers
 See “Likes” for trends in interest in the company
 Can also search “Software Engineers at Snapchat”, etc.
o Twitter (https://twitter.com, search company name and open company page)
 Learn what the company is sharing w/ followers – may be more relevant than FB
 May find information like https://twitter.com/snapchatsupport
o FollowerWonk (https://followerwonk.com/)
 Use “Search bios” to see who has particular text in bio (e.g. “at snapchat”)
 Use “Analyze” for detailed analysis of their activity AND followers
 Analysis can be done for people they follow as well as their followers
 Note: When follower list is large, can only view w/ paid account
 Web
o Alexa (http://www.alexa.com/)

2.  See data on traffic to website, including where viewers are coming from
o SEMRush (http://www.semrush.com/)
 Learn more about where they’re getting traffic from
 Try searching their jobs page (e.g. search for https://www.snapchat.com/jobs)
o Google Keyword planner (https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner)
 Look at search volume trends and get suggested ad prices (e.g. advertise to
people searching for “snapchat jobs”
 Ratings and reviews
o Glassdoor (http://www.glassdoor.com/)
 Search company name, then pick “companies”
 Note: Depending on company, may run into a pay wall quickly
 To find companies with low star-ratings, search the following via Google:
site:glassdoor.com inurl:Overview "0.0..2.5 * Rating Trends"
 To scan individual reviews, search the following via Google: site:glassdoor.com
inurl:"Reviews/Employee-Review" inurl:snapchat
 Note that for the above, star ratings show up right in Google search results
 LinkedIn
o Visit company page
 See posted jobs
 See full list of employees
 LinkedIn might limit your visibility - try Googling e.g. site:linkedin.com
inurl:in|pub "at snapchat" as well
 On user profiles, see “People Also Viewed” and “People Similar to”
 Try advanced search and in Company, use “Past not current” to learn about
people who’ve left the company
 Compensation data:
o https://twitter.com/search?q=%23talkpay – people publicly share their compensation,
including people at Google, etc.
o ($) https://www.radford.com/
o ($) http://www.payscale.com/
o ($) http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/index.htm
o http://www.salary.com/category/salary/ (free, but it’s generic and not company-
specific)
 Other
o Indeed jobs trends (http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends)
o ($) DiscoverOrg Org Charts (https://discoverorg.com/)
o Slideshare presentations (http://www.slideshare.net/)
 For employees (and their presentations) search via Google: site:slideshare.net
"engineer|developer at facebook"
o ($) InsideView company insights (http://www.insideview.com/)
o ($) Competitive social media analytics (https://www.rivaliq.com/)