How to monitor competitors on Instagram and TikTok without opening the apps
The two platforms with no RSS, no public search worth using, and the highest signal for consumer brands. Here is how to watch them systematically.
To monitor competitors on Instagram and TikTok reliably you need three things: a fixed list of accounts, a schedule you will actually keep, and a way to compare a TikTok video against an Instagram post without fooling yourself. Both platforms lack RSS and useful public search, so the workflow is account-based by necessity. Here is the version that works for a small marketing team, first by hand and then automated.
Step 1: decide what "competitor" means for this list
Most competitor lists are too long and too vague. Pick a scope and cap it:
- Direct competitors (same product, same buyer): usually three to eight accounts.
- Category leaders you benchmark against even if they are not direct rivals: two to four.
- Creators and partners that shape the category: the five to ten people whose collaboration posts move your market.
That is a twenty-account list at most. It fits on one screen and, more importantly, in one person's attention. See how to build a competitor watchlist for the selection method.
Step 2: register both platforms as one entity
A brand's Instagram and TikTok are the same competitor, not two. If you track them separately you will double-count reposts, and when one platform blocks collection you will lose the entity entirely.
Register each competitor once with its Instagram profile URL as the main source and its TikTok, X and website as backups. Then a Reel that is also posted as a TikTok appears once, and an Instagram outage degrades to "served from TikTok" instead of silence.
Step 3: track the right signals
New posts are the obvious signal and the least useful one on its own. The useful comparisons are all relative:
| Signal | Why it matters | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Posts per week | Cadence changes precede campaigns | A jump from 3 to 9 posts is a launch week |
| Format mix | Reels vs carousels, TikTok length | A shift to long TikToks often means a narrative campaign |
| Engagement vs their own average | The only fair measure of a post's success | 3× their normal likes matters; 3× yours does not |
| Collaborators and tags | Partnerships surface here first | New creator tags = new distribution deals |
| Pinned and deleted posts | What they want seen, and what went wrong | A deleted launch post is a story |
| Comment velocity | Early indicator of a viral or a crisis | Comments outpacing likes is unusual |
The mistake almost everyone makes is comparing raw numbers across accounts and platforms. A 50,000-view TikTok from an account that averages 200,000 is a bad day. A 5,000-like Instagram post from an account that averages 800 is news.
Step 4: pick a cadence and keep it
- Daily for steady-state competitors. Read at the same time each morning.
- Every six hours during a competitor's known launch window, or if your team ships same-day reactive content.
- Hourly for a live campaign week, an event, or a crisis where the first hour matters.
Manual checking survives about two weeks at daily cadence and dies at anything faster. That is the point at which to automate.
Step 5: automate the collection
Instagram's own Competitive Insights (Professional Dashboard, up to ten accounts) is free and worth switching on, but it keeps you inside the app and only covers Instagram. Listening suites cover both platforms by keyword, at listening-suite prices.
A source radar does the account-based version directly: you give it the profile URLs, it scans on the schedule, collapses cross-platform reposts, and ranks each item against the account's own baseline.
In Prowler: add a competitor as a source with Instagram as the main URL and TikTok as the first backup. Set the schedule (daily on any paid plan, every six hours on Individual, hourly on Business), then read the Feed. Each item shows interactions, a 0–100 rank within the scan, and the platform badge; Trending re-scores everything as interactions divided by that platform's baseline, halved every 24 hours, so TikTok views and Instagram likes land on one scale. Star a source as Important to filter the feed down to your direct rivals.
Step 6: turn observations into a weekly note
Monitoring that does not change a decision is a hobby. A useful weekly note has four lines per competitor:
- What they posted more or less of than usual.
- The one post that outperformed their baseline, and why you think it did.
- Any new collaborator, format or product mention.
- What, if anything, you will do differently this week.
Keep the note to a page. Save the outperforming posts somewhere permanent, because feeds move on; in a radar the Saved list exists for exactly this.
Common mistakes
- Following competitors from the brand account. It leaks intent and pollutes your own algorithm. Read public profiles without following, or let a tool do it.
- Tracking too many accounts. Twenty is the ceiling for a list one person actually reads.
- Comparing their numbers to yours. Compare their numbers to their own history.
- Ignoring TikTok because "we are not on TikTok". Your competitors' TikTok is where their next Instagram campaign is being tested.
Related: Google Alerts alternatives for social media, why a TikTok like isn't an X like. Or set up your first three competitors free.
The people building Prowler's scoring, de-duplication and source pipeline.