Competitive Intelligence based on Social Network Content and the Factors Affecting its Process

Given the increasing use of social media and the richer content available on these networks, using various competitive intelligence models based on user-generated content has become one of the many interests of organizations and institutions. The purpose of this research was to identify the factors affecting various stages of the process of competitive intelligence based on the content of the social media. The research had a qualitative method and was implemented in the form of an applied research. In this research, using the systematic review of previous studies, various factors affecting the competitive social networking cycle based on the content of social media have been identified. Then, the identified factors have been coded and categorized into different themes using thematic analysis. The results of the research, while summarizing and introducing previous superior studies, showed that the process of competitive intelligence based on social network consisted of four stages of planning and directing, data collection, analysis, and distribution of results. In this study, a total of 24 different influential factors have been identified, each of which contributed to the quantity and quality of some of the results obtained from these steps. Organizations should consider these factors to better exploit the advantages of competitive intelligence based on the content of social networks.