If you’re still pasting competitor posts into spreadsheets or saving screenshots to track their social strategy, you’re losing time and context. More importantly, you’re missing patterns that only emerge when data is consistently reviewed in the same system where your campaigns already live.
HubSpot’s social monitoring tools let you track competitor activity directly inside your portal. Yet many teams stop at scheduling and basic publishing, never using competitor feeds to inform strategy.
This guide explains what competitor social feeds actually do in HubSpot, how to set them up correctly, what they can and cannot show, common mistakes to avoid, and how to turn monitoring into actionable insight.
It also covers how INSIDEA helps teams operationalize competitor tracking without bloated tooling.
Monitoring Competitor Social Activity in HubSpot
Competitor social feeds in HubSpot allow you to monitor public posts from competitor business pages across supported social networks. These feeds, under Marketing > Social > Monitoring, provide a centralized view of how other companies publish and how audiences engage.
Depending on the network, HubSpot can display:
- Post copy and publish timing
- Visible engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares)
- Posting frequency and cadence
This feature is not competitive intelligence software, and it does not expose private performance data. Instead, it gives you side-by-side visibility into what competitors are putting into the market and how audiences are reacting publicly.
When reviewed alongside your own social analytics, CRM activity, and campaign performance, these feeds help answer practical questions:
- Are competitors publishing more frequently than we are?
- Which formats are driving visible engagement?
- Are messaging themes shifting across the market?
How It Works Under the Hood
HubSpot’s social monitoring relies on API connections tied to your authenticated social accounts, not your competitors’. Once your own accounts are connected, HubSpot can pull public competitor content that each platform allows third-party access to.
Inputs:
- Your connected social accounts (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X)
- Competitor business page URLs or handles
- Optional filters such as date range or keyword focus
Processing:
- HubSpot retrieves recent public posts from competitor pages
- Data refresh frequency depends on platform limits
Outputs:
- A chronological feed of competitor posts
- Engagement counts are visible to the public
- Exportable data for reporting and analysis
HubSpot cannot access:
- Private metrics like impressions, clicks, or conversions
- Audience demographics for competitor accounts
- Paid performance data
This makes competitor feeds best suited for pattern recognition, not granular benchmarking.
Main Uses Inside HubSpot
Comparing Publishing Cadence and Engagement
One of the most immediate benefits of competitor feeds is the ability to compare cadences. Viewing competitor posts alongside your own schedule highlights gaps that aren’t obvious in isolation.
For example, you may notice that competitors post consistently mid-week while your brand publishes sporadically or clusters posts on one day. Seeing engagement patterns tied to timing helps you adjust your publishing schedule with evidence, not guesswork.
Generating Content and Campaign Direction
Competitor feeds act as a passive testing ground. You see which formats, topics, and tones are gaining traction without running experiments yourself first.
Patterns worth tracking include:
- Repeated themes across multiple competitors
- Strong engagement on short-form vs. long-form posts
- Shifts toward video, polls, or opinion-led updates
These insights can be logged directly into your HubSpot content planning and campaign strategy.
Spotting Market Signals Early
Social feeds often surface shifts in messaging before they appear in press releases or blog content. When multiple competitors begin emphasizing the same topic, it’s rarely accidental.
Monitoring those signals helps you:
- Align upcoming campaigns with emerging narratives
- Adjust positioning before conversations become saturated
- Identify topics worth deeper content investment
Common Setup Errors and Wrong Assumptions
Mistake: Tracking personal profiles instead of business pages
Why it matters: HubSpot only supports monitoring of business pages. Personal profiles will either fail silently or return limited data.
Mistake: Letting account permissions expire
Why it matters: If your connected social accounts lose authorization, competitor feeds stop updating. This is one of the most common causes of “dead” feeds.
Mistake: Expecting private or paid metrics
Why it matters: HubSpot only shows what is publicly visible. Use competitor feeds for directional insight, not detailed performance comparison.
Mistake: Adding too many competitors to one feed
Why it matters: Overloaded feeds refresh more slowly and become harder to analyze. Focus on your closest peers, not the entire market.
Step-by-Step: Creating a Competitor Social Feed in HubSpot
Before starting, confirm:
- You’re on Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise
- At least one social account is connected and authorized
- You have social monitoring permissions
Step 1: Open the Monitoring Tool
Go to Marketing > Social > Monitoring.
Step 2: Create a New Stream
Click Create stream or Add feed.
Step 3: Choose the Competitor Feed Type
Select Competitors when prompted, then choose the social network.
Step 4: Add Competitor Business Pages
Paste verified business page URLs or handles. Double-check accuracy directly on the platform.
Step 5: Apply Optional Filters
Limit the view by timeframe or narrow focus if competitors post frequently.
Step 6: Name the Feed Clearly
Use labels like “Core Competitors – LinkedIn” to keep dashboards readable.
Step 7: Save and Validate
Allow a few minutes for posts to populate. Refresh if needed.
Step 8: Export or Dashboard the Data
Use exports for deeper analysis or add feeds to dashboards for ongoing review.
Repeat this process for each social network you want to monitor.
Measuring Results in HubSpot
Competitor monitoring becomes valuable when it informs action. HubSpot supports this by letting you layer competitor observations alongside your own metrics.
Use:
- Marketing > Social > Analyze to review your performance trends
- Custom Dashboards to compare competitor posting volume with your traffic or lead trends
- Campaign Analytics to test themes that appear to be resonating in the market
On a monthly cadence, review:
- Number of competitor posts
- Engagement per post
- Format trends
- Messaging shifts or recurring topics
This turns social monitoring into repeatable competitive insight, not ad hoc observation.
Short Example That Ties It Together
A B2B company tracks three direct competitors on LinkedIn and X using HubSpot feeds.
Over six weeks, one competitor shifts heavily toward short-form video and sees visible engagement gains. The team adapts by testing lightweight video posts in their own HubSpot publishing queue.
Social reports confirm higher engagement than previous static posts. The adjustment was driven entirely by competitor monitoring inside HubSpot, not external tools.
How INSIDEA Helps
Many teams set up competitor feeds but never integrate them into decision-making. INSIDEA helps bridge that gap.
We support:
- HubSpot Onboarding: Correctly configuring social monitoring from day one
- HubSpot Management: Maintaining account permissions and feed health
- Automation Support: Alerts when competitor activity spikes
- Reporting Alignment: Dashboards that connect competitor signals to campaign outcomes
If competitor tracking feels manual, inconsistent, or disconnected from results, it’s usually a setup and governance issue, not a tooling limitation.
Ready to Make Competitor Monitoring Actionable?
Competitor feeds work best when they’re structured, reviewed consistently, and tied to strategy. If you want help setting this up properly or optimizing what you already have, hire our HubSpot experts to turn competitor monitoring into a reliable input for smarter campaigns.
