Want to boost your brand on social media? Create a rivalry

Ever worried about mentioning competitor brands in your marketing? Concerned you'll give them free publicity or boost their SEO?

Don't be. Research shows social media posts that mention other brands can garner much engagement and even improve perception of your own brand.

One of the most powerful ways to increase engagement is by positioning yourself as a rival to another well-known company in your space.

This is because it's far more interesting to see companies actively compete than pretend the other doesn't exist. It creates an ongoing, dynamic narrative that users can get invested in.

"Rivalry transforms ordinary communication into captivating stories,” according to German Sport University professor Sebastian Uhrich.

Uhrich knows what he's talking about. He and two fellow researchers analyzed more than 1.2 million social media posts from 100 brands for a paper published earlier this year in the Journal of Marketing Research.

Posts mentioning a rival brand did better than those that referenced another non-rival company in their space. A Burger King Facebook post mentioning rival McDonald's generated 9.8% more likes than one about KFC.

On the whole, posts that mentioned a rival company garnered 196.7% more likes on average than those that didn't.

"Messages between rivals are processed differently than between ordinary competitors who have no shared history but merely a conventional competitive relationship," said co-author Johannes Berendt, professor at Hochschule Hannover - University of Applied Sciences and Arts, in a statement.

Classic storytelling narratives

These messages lean in to classic storytelling narratives, added Uhrich "Rivalry has two central elements of exciting stories: familiar antagonists, such as McDonald's and Burger King, and a classic plot, recurring conflict.”

But it's only worth doing if your rival is well-known to your particular audience. People care about Pepsi vs Coke. They don't care about Pepsi vs your favorite hipster cola.

Over time, people become personally invested in rivalries — often over and above the products themselves. Brand loyalty can become part of your personal identity.

Apple leaned heavily into this idea with its mid-2000s "Get a Mac" campaign, which depicted Macs and PCs as people — one laid-back and competent, the other stuffy and anxious about work.

The ads were light-hearted and employed gentle mockery. This tone is important for social media, where the best-performing posts were slightly critical or mocking.

If you're worried about getting the tone right, it might be best to stick with simple fact-based comparisons. My product offers X feature that its rival doesn't. My product is 10% cheaper than its rival.

Positive messaging

If you're not yet well-known enough to create a rivalry, you can still benefit from mentioning other brands in your niche.

And you don't even have to be critical. Praising other brands in your niche can make a brand seem warmer and more human. Research shows it leads to more sales, without necessarily boosting income for your competition.

Whether you're talking about a rival or another competitor, it's best to keep your posts fun and positive. Consumers are already subject to so much divisive content online, they don't tend to look favorably on negative brand messaging

If you run a SaaS, you may already use blogs about competitors as an SEO tool for your business's landing page. It's a great way to pick up traffic for people searching for alternatives to a specific product.

But addressing competition head-on can be a great way to boost social media engagement and get people invested in your brand.