# Competitor Watch > Map which creators are creating around your competitor brands — surface creators with corpus-known affinities to named competitors, plus similar not-yet-affiliated creators as whitespace casting targets. Use when the user says "who's creating for [competitor]", "which creators work with our competitors", "competitor creator watch", "map [brand]'s creator roster", or names rival brands and wants the creator landscape around them. Deliverable is a competitor creator-landscape report. - Skill: `creatorland/competitor-watch` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add creatorland/competitor-watch` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/creatorland/competitor-watch/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Docs & Writing - Author: creatorland (https://skillmd.com/u/creatorland) - Updated: 2026-09-21 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/creatorland/competitor-watch --- # Competitor Creator Watch Answers "who is creating around the brands we compete with?" — in two layers: (1) creators the corpus links to the named competitor brands via brand affinities/affiliations, and (2) **whitespace**: similar creators the corpus does NOT link to those competitors, i.e. casting targets a rival hasn't visibly claimed. For brand-side managers sizing up a rival's creator strategy and agency strategists pitching whitespace slates. Read first: ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/shared/conventions.md (tool schemas, credit prices, the nine conventions). This skill honors thrifty/thorough credit modes (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/shared/credit-modes.md), Refusal Recovery (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/shared/refusal-recovery.md), and the Freshness Gate (${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/shared/freshness-gate.md). > Same honesty rule as conflict checking everywhere in this plugin: brand > links are **corpus-derived, not exhaustive**. "Affiliated with X in the > Creatorland corpus" ≠ "works with X"; "no affiliation found" ≠ "free of > X". Unreported, in-flight, and off-platform deals are invisible. The report > says this prominently, not in fine print. > If the user wants a one-shot conflict check on a slate they already have, > that's the conflict step inside `brief-to-shortlist` — this skill is for > mapping the landscape AROUND competitor brands. For watching a creator > search space over time, use `talent-scout` (the two compose: a finished > competitor-watch search can be saved as a scout profile). > **Precision & filters for outreach (convention 14).** Broad mapping is right > for the landscape layer here — but when the whitespace targets become a > slate someone will actually contact, cast that cut for precision: > `precision: "tight"` with the hard-gate filters (`platform`, `niche`, > `data_freshness_days`, `content_format`, `audience_country`), do not stack > dozens of `lookalike` hops to pad it (each hop drifts), and trim the weak > tail by `relative_fit` (within-set fit, `1.0` = strongest). Canon: > `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/shared/conventions.md` convention 14. ## Inputs to collect - **Competitor brand names** (required, 1–5). Confirm spellings — affinity matching is name-based. - **The user's own brand/vertical context** — needed to define "similar creators" for the whitespace layer and to scope the optional market-intel context call. Infer from conversation if possible; ask once if not. - **Geo/platform/tier constraints** (optional) — applied to searches if given. - **Whitespace layer on/off** — default on; skip if the user only wants the affiliated map. - **Credit mode** — default `thorough`; thrifty on the usual trigger phrases. ## Flow **Step 1 — Affinity search per competitor brand.** One `search_creators` call per named brand (convention 9: a brand LIST gets per-brand searches and a per-brand-sectioned deliverable, never one merged search): ```json search_creators { "mode": "brief", "brief": "creators creating content around , space", "filters": { "brand_affinities": [""], "platform": "", "country": "", "min_followers": }, "limit": 15, "precision": "balanced" } ``` (thorough: limit 15; thrifty: limit 8.) `brand_affinities` is the load-bearing filter; the brief text reinforces it. **Step 2 — Profile fan-out for affiliation confirmation.** `get_creator_profile { "identifier": { "type": "", ... } }` on candidates. The profile's **brand affiliations** field (pro plan) is the confirmation layer: classify each creator as **affiliation-confirmed** (competitor appears in profile affiliations) vs **affinity-signal only** (surfaced by the affinity search but not in the affiliations field — weaker evidence, labeled as such). If affiliations are unavailable (free plan), say so: the whole report downgrades to affinity-signal confidence, disclosed up top. Thorough: profile every candidate. Thrifty: top 6 per brand. **Step 3 — Whitespace layer (if on).** For each competitor, seed a lookalike search off the 1–2 strongest affiliation-confirmed creators: ```json search_creators { "mode": "lookalike", "seed_creator": { "type": "creatorland_user_id", "creatorland_user_id": "" }, "limit": 10, "precision": "balanced" } ``` Profile the lookalikes, then keep those whose affiliations do NOT include any of the named competitors → the whitespace list. Label honestly: "no competitor link **found in the corpus**" — never "unaffiliated." **Credit estimate fires here.** Thorough with 3 competitors + whitespace runs ~3 searches + ~45 profiles + 3 lookalike searches + ~30 profiles ≈ 87 credits — well over the ~30 threshold, so state the estimate before the fan-out and offer thrifty (proceed after stating; do not block). **Step 4 — Freshness Gate** on every profiled creator per the shared module. Affiliations drift; a stale profile's competitor link is exactly the kind of claim that embarrasses a deck. Stale rows go to "re-verify", always. **Step 5 — Optional market context (pro, one call).** One `query_market_intelligence { "mode": "market", "vertical": "" }` to frame how active the vertical's deal landscape is overall — context for the whitespace pitch. Wrapped in Refusal Recovery (market floor: 5 brands / 25 deals); disclose any broadening. Thrifty: skip. **Step 6 — Write the deliverable.** ## Deliverable ```markdown # Competitor Creator Watch — _Built · Creatorland Data · corpus-derived, not exhaustive (see scope note)_ > **Scope note (read first):** brand links below come from Creatorland's > corpus of known affinities and affiliations. They are not a complete record > of who works with these brands — unreported, in-flight, and off-platform > deals are invisible to this data. Treat "affiliated" as "corpus-confirmed > link" and "whitespace" as "no link found in the corpus", nothing stronger. ## ### Corpus-linked creators () | Creator | Platform / followers | Evidence | Freshness | |---|---|---|---| | @ | , | affiliation-confirmed (profile affiliations) | fresh | | @ | , | affinity-signal only | aging (note) | ### Whitespace — similar creators with no corpus link to () | Creator | Platform / followers | Similar to | Freshness | |---|---|---|---| | @ | , | lookalike of @ | fresh | ## Cross-brand observations ## Vertical context (if pulled) — narrower slice was below the privacy floor (5 brands / 25 deals); a privacy feature of the data source."> ## Re-verify before pitch ## Caveats - Corpus-derived, not exhaustive — see scope note. "Whitespace" creators may have undisclosed competitor relationships. - - - No creator contact info is included or available via this tool; route outreach through Creatorland connections or creators' public profiles. --- Data freshness: / creators synced within the last sync window; flagged for re-verification. Provenance: Creatorland Data MCP · affinity searches + lookalike searches +

profiles<+ 1 market context ()> · . Credits used this run: ~ ( searches ×2 +

profiles ×1 <+ market intel ×5>). ``` ## Honesty rules - **Corpus-derived, not exhaustive** — the scope note leads the deliverable; never present the linked list as a brand's complete roster, never present whitespace as "guaranteed conflict-free." - Distinguish affiliation-confirmed from affinity-signal evidence on every row; downgrade the whole report's confidence framing on free plan and say why. - Thin per-brand results: disclose and broaden one labeled step (convention 8) — never pad a competitor's list with weak fits to look thorough. - No deal terms, spend figures, or contract claims — the corpus shows relationships, not commercial detail. - Stale affiliation data never silently mixed in (Freshness Gate). - No contact info anywhere (convention 7). ## Credit footprint thorough (3 competitors, whitespace on): ~85–95 credits (3 affinity searches ×2 + ~45 profiles + 3 lookalike searches ×2 + ~30 whitespace profiles + 1 market intel ×5; +5 per refusal-ladder rung) — the estimate always fires · thrifty (3 competitors): ~30–35 credits (3 searches ×2 + ~18 profiles + 1 lookalike search ×2 + ~6 profiles, market context skipped) · single-competitor thrifty, whitespace off: ~10 credits.