Key takeaways Competitive intelligence turns competitor signals into actionable business, product, and marketing decisions. The four core types are market, product, competitor, and consumer intelligence; CI can be strategic or tactical. A structured process (define priorities, collect data, analyze, distribute insights, iterate) turns raw information into action. Social listening tools like Lumen inside Hootsuite Social OS track mentions, sentiment, and actionable insights from social media. What is competitive intelligence? Competitive intelligence is the process of collecting and analyzing data about your competitors, industry, market, and customers to guide business decisions and strategy. It involves gathering insights from multiple sources to understand trends, risks, and opportunities. It’s also often confused with related disciplines like market research and business intelligence, which we’ll untangle in the next section. ...