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BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo

Overview

What is BuzzSumo?

BuzzSumo is an influencer marketing platform focused on influencer location, author reports, content analysis for locating trends, and domain comparisons, useful for competitor analysis. The analysis engine is intentioned to track and optimize content marketing efforts. BuzzSumo was acquired by Brandwatch,…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Buzzsumo has become an essential tool for social media specialists and marketing agencies, providing a range of use cases to enhance …
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My BuzzSumo Review

6 out of 10
July 14, 2021
Incentivized
It is being used by our marketing and content team mainly for content research. It greatly helps us in generating new content ideas for …
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Awards

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Pricing

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Content Creation

$199

Cloud
per month

PR & Comms

$299

Cloud
per month

Suite

$499

Cloud
per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://buzzsumo.com/pricing/

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $159 per month
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Product Details

What is BuzzSumo?

BuzzSumo is an influencer marketing platform focused on influencer location, author reports, content analysis for locating trends, and domain comparisons, useful for competitor analysis. The analysis engine is intentioned to track and optimize content marketing efforts. The product was acquired by Brandwatch in 2017.

BuzzSumo Video

BuzzSumo Integrations

BuzzSumo Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

BuzzSumo is an influencer marketing platform focused on influencer location, author reports, content analysis for locating trends, and domain comparisons, useful for competitor analysis. The analysis engine is intentioned to track and optimize content marketing efforts. BuzzSumo was acquired by Brandwatch, which is now a Cision company (acquired February 2021).

BuzzSumo starts at $159.

Mention, MarketMuse, and NewsWhip Spike are common alternatives for BuzzSumo.

Reviewers rate Usability highest, with a score of 9.

The most common users of BuzzSumo are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(73)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Buzzsumo has become an essential tool for social media specialists and marketing agencies, providing a range of use cases to enhance content marketing strategies. With its ability to analyze billions of pieces of content, Buzzsumo allows users to identify relevant and trending content for clients' social media platforms. This feature not only helps establish meaningful influencer connections but also uncovers new opportunities for brands. Users appreciate the dashboard that consolidates all information in one place, facilitating cross-collaboration among teams, streamlining the process of building an SEO strategy, and searching for topics of interest. Furthermore, Buzzsumo aids in influencer outreach, shaping blog titles to attract more traffic, researching topics, generating content ideas, and identifying influencers. Moreover, it simplifies content strategy by providing ideas for webinars, blog posts, videos, and other forms of content. Additionally, Buzzsumo is invaluable for planning social media content effectively, identifying trending topics, monitoring brand mentions, and conducting media monitoring and reporting. It also enables tracking of content shareability and acquired backlinks to assess the impact of work. Users appreciate the tool's performance analysis features in assessing popular and trending topics, aiding in research, analysis, and planning editorial calendars for content marketing teams. Furthermore, BuzzSumo has proven to be helpful in competitor research by analyzing competitors' social media profiles, top-performing content, and best times to post on different platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. The software has been praised for its ability to find out what is popular online concerning content marketing and social media. It also helps users understand influencers better while allowing them to track competitors' social media activities and gain insights into their strategies. Moreover, BuzzSumo is a go-to platform for influencer marketing as it allows users to find influencers across various social media platforms and establish relationships with them. Additionally, customers have used BuzzSumo for content curation on social media channels and marketing research. It has been found helpful in generating new content ideas for blogs and social media sites while facilitating competitor analysis. BuzzSumo has also been used to analyze the performance of topics and content online, identifying the best social channels and months for content promotion. Moreover, it has been effectively used by marketing and content teams for research, generating data insights about social media pages, comparing the social reach of their content with that of competitors, checking backlinks, and identifying keywords. The software helps track web mentions and measure the social shares of own content, providing accurate data for KPI measurement within the marketing team. One of the key benefits of BuzzSumo is its ability to change and direct marketing strategies based on insights from social media and beyond. The platform has been a valuable source for high-engagement content ideas and has facilitated content curation, driving content calendar ideas and engagement analysis. It has helped users determine which content has the highest likelihood of better engagement, solving the problem of content optimization. In addition, BuzzSumo enables teams to keep track of online activities, especially on social media platforms, and make informed decisions to improve social media and blog engagement as well as overall content performance. Overall, BuzzSumo offers efficiency and multiple use cases that are essential for both social media specialists and marketing agencies in enhancing their content marketing strategies.

Clean and Intuitive Interface: Users have consistently praised BuzzSumo for its clean and intuitive user interface. Many reviewers have mentioned that the platform is easy to navigate, allowing them to quickly find the information they need. This positive sentiment indicates that a significant number of users appreciate the user-friendly design of BuzzSumo. Accurate Data and Wide Variety of Suggestions: Several users have expressed their satisfaction with the accuracy of the data provided by BuzzSumo. They appreciate that the platform offers a wide variety of topic/query suggestions, which helps them in their marketing research and content creation efforts. This feedback highlights how users value the reliable data and comprehensive insights offered by BuzzSumo. Identifying Popular Content and Trending Topics: The ability to identify popular content and trending topics is highly valued by users as it allows them to stay up to date with what resonates with their target audience. Numerous reviewers have mentioned how this feature enables them to create relevant and engaging content that drives engagement. The positive feedback emphasizes how this functionality enhances users' understanding of current market trends. Overall, these three pros - Clean and Intuitive Interface, Accurate Data and Wide Variety of Suggestions, Identifying Popular Content and Trending Topics - are frequently highlighted by users when praising BuzzSumo's effectiveness in helping them achieve their marketing goals.

Costly Pricing: Many users have expressed dissatisfaction with the pricing of the software, particularly for non-profit organizations, schools/students, and small businesses. They have found the price to be costly and feel that there should be discounted pricing options available for these groups.

Limited Free Version: Users have mentioned limitations of the free version, such as a limited number of search results and the inability to add negative keywords in search results. Some users also feel that the software could offer more robust SEO tools and provide more free services.

Poor User Interface: The user interface UI of the software has received criticism from users who find it clunky, not user-friendly, and lacking in smart features compared to other platforms. They suggest improvements to make it easier to use and more intuitive.

Users recommend Buzzsumo for its ability to generate new and creative content ideas. They appreciate the tool's features that allow them to see what topics are trending and what type of content performs well in their industry. With this information, content teams can expand their reach and stay ahead of competitors by producing fresh and engaging content.

Many reviewers highlight the usefulness of Buzzsumo in providing insights into competitor strategies. The tool allows users to analyze their competitors' top-performing content, backlinks, and social media engagement. This information helps content teams understand what is working for their competitors and enables them to refine their own content strategy accordingly.

Customers often praise Buzzsumo for its comprehensive analytics capabilities. The tool provides detailed metrics and data on the performance of published content, including social shares, backlinks, and engagement metrics. By tracking these analytics, users can measure the success of their content campaigns and make data-driven decisions to optimize their content marketing efforts.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-16 of 16)
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July 14, 2021

My BuzzSumo Review

Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used by our marketing and content team mainly for content research. It greatly helps us in generating new content ideas for our blog page and social media sites. Also helps in competitor analysis. And gives us data insights about various social media pages on their performance regarding a particular topic. Helps in trend analysis.
  • Trend analysis
  • Competitor analysis
  • Content ideas
  • Increase the number of search option for free trial
  • Include Instagram insights
  • A filter to differentiate news and general topics
It mainly for content research. It greatly helps us in generating new content ideas for our blog page and social media sites. Also helps in competitor analysis. And gives us data insights about various social media pages on their performance regarding a particular topic. Helps in trend analysis. Gives content based on country trends.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our company uses BuzzSumo as a tool in our arsenal for backlinking and social media strategy by finding popular pages, social media posts and trends, etc. We also use the influencer database to look for influencers who can help promote certain companies in certain niches. It is a helpful tool for sifting through influencers.
  • The influencer database and search is excellent.
  • Helps us to discover content that works and is popular for us.
  • Works well as a monitoring and analytics tool.
  • The only thing I could complain about is the pricing. It seems to be a bit high.
  • Some of the interface can be a bit difficult to manage.
Any business that wants to succeed online should use BuzzSumo as it can help to generate content ideas for your website or for your social media.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BuzzSumo is an excellent tool for finding out what is popular online when it comes to content marketing and social media. It even helps you connect with influencers to run campaigns.
  • Search is excellent
  • Allows you to keep track of your competitors
  • Finding and connecting with influencers
  • Monitoring social media
  • BuzzSumo filter could be a bit better
  • Content curation feature could be improved
  • Customer support could be better
Any digital business could use this tool to find out what is popular and working online.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BuzzSumo is a great tool for everything on social media. You can see what is trending and what is happening on social media with one click. You can find influencers and connect with them as well.
  • Stay on top of what's going on on social media.
  • Interface is pretty cool.
  • Helps us with our influencer search and strategy
  • Helps us with our website content strategy
  • It definitely is a bit pricey, but to be fair it has a lot of tools wrapped into one.
  • Some of the data is not entirely accurate
  • Interface could be improved and easier to use
BuzzSumo is really a great tool if you need tips and tools for content optimization or if you are a largely social based company because it greatly assists in being able to run social the best way possible.
Aniket Kumar Chaudhary | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I love it! BuzzSumo analyzes billions of pieces of content so that everyone can access comprehensive big data analytics.
Buzzsumo is a search engine that tries to show the most successful content on the web. It is based on the content that has had the most viral, and you know it by the number of times it has been shared on different social networks. Thus, with this tool, you can find the most relevant content based on specific keywords, and you will have a reference to create your own posts or blog articles with more guarantees of success. BuzzSumo helps me create real engagement with whomever I want to communicate with. It proved extremely important for me to grow my social networks.
  • Use the filters to segment the information.
  • Find out what works on each network.
  • Find influencers and build relationships.
  • BuzzSumo is helpful in building backlinks.
  • The subscription price is a bit high.
  • Topic Explorer feature can use more improvement.
  • I feel It want to do everything without any focus on a specific task. Therefore its functionality can create confusion for the new users.
I will tell you that it is as simple as creating new content from others that have already been published and have a certain authority.

As you know, we do not always come up with great ideas for any topic and, above all, no matter how great the ideas are, in the age of social networks, they will rarely be novel. Consequently, most of us create new materials based on various sources, which is exactly where the tool to which I have dedicated this review appears: Buzzsumo.

Because it guarantees that these sources have been shared - and therefore valued - by users who can become your potential audience. In other words, it is about looking for what they like the most to give them an improved version and conquer them.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Buzzsumo to track web mentions and also to track the number of social shares of our own content. It is being used solely within the marketing team and allows us to accurately measure our KPIs.
  • Track social shares
  • Track web mentions
  • Spam filters aren't very strong for web mentions
  • UX isn't great
Buzzsumo is very good for our specific use case to track social shares, and I also like the Chrome extension. But if you need it for influencers or other content strategy work, it's not the best tool. For PR, we are looking at switching away for this tool.
Eligreg Lopez | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used Buzzsumo to help clients get into the conversation online. There were so many approaches we could use to build an SEO strategy but Buzzsumo made it all easier. We used it in Marketing to search for topics of interest in a way we never thought possible. Working all the time we don't have the chance to check social media or any other platforms to check what are the people interested in and this tool makes it easier.
  • Specific.
  • On top of trends.
  • Easy to use.
  • Problem solver.
  • Good price/service relationship.
  • Could offer more free services.
  • Could have wider integrations.
If you're looking to save time, Buzzsumo is for you. In SEO we know there are many free ways to reach your goal but they require a lot of time and deep knowledge of the situation. If the team is looking to save money while having a lot of time to complete their tasks, go ahead. Otherwise, Buzzsumo is perfect.
Sarah Hoffman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I manage a team of social media specialists and we have been using Buzzsumo for over four years to help us identify the most relevant and trending content and topics to keep our client's social media fresh and informative in the eyes of their audiences. Influencer marketing in 2020 has become more tantamount to social media success and the Buzzsumo tool allows us to find new opportunities for our brands to establish meaningful influencer connections. At our agency, we use Buzzsumo to identify top hashtags, top trending content, new content, and analyze competitor content in real-time. We love how the dashboard houses all of this information for our social media and content marketing teams all in one place for cross-collaboration.
  • Identifying competitor content in real-time
  • Backlink insights for content marketing
  • Facebook Analyzer
  • Hashtag search capabilities
  • Real-time data and analysis
  • The price is a little costly for us
  • Would love for it to integrate with Google Ads keyword planner better
  • Competitor advertising benchmark analysis
Pros
  • The real-time data unmatched and Buzzsumo is continually improving their tools and dashboards every year (we've noticed that their team listens to suggestions and often implements new features based on how our industry is evolving).
Cons
  • The price is a little steep for us. We are a small advertising agency and have a lot of tools to consider to improve our efficiency. We just wish it was a little less expensive.
Brittney Collier | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use BuzzSumo to gain insight on how prospective clients find our content, how we can lead them to our content using SEO, and when it's best to publish content. The platform also provides information to help us determine which social media platforms are more receptive or responsive to certain topics and content types.
  • The best part about BuzzSumo is its insight on SEO/keywords. The platform lets you know which keywords relevant to our products have been searched most frequently. By figuring out how prospects are searching for content like ours, we're able to improve the language we use to target them.
  • BuzzSumo really helps with finding the most effective content publishing times. For example, we're a B2B company, so we thought that posting on social media throughout the week was most effective since our customers would be in the office. However, the tools on BuzzSumo showed us that engagement with similar content was heaviest on Sunday nights over the last year.
  • BuzzSumo has a great tool for understanding which social media platform to use for sharing your content. After finding the most relevant keywords for your audience and content type, the platform has graphs showing you which social media sites these types of content were viewed on the most. This helped us to stop posting on social media platforms that our prospects weren't using.
  • The worst aspect of BuzzSumo is the pricing. We're a non-profit and we pay $299/month to use the platform. The lowest price you can get the platform for is $99/month and you'll have the least features. I think this is way too expensive -- especially for the enterprise package which is $499 or more/month. To be fair, I think the pricing for non-profits, schools/students, and small businesses should be discounted.
  • I wish BuzzSumo provided more keyword recommendations. Before I researched heavily enough to find out what our prospects typically searched for when looking for products similar to ours, I didn't know where to begin. Because of that, my keyword searches didn't bring up many results in the beginning, and BuzzSumo doesn't give recommendations when that happens. I eventually had to go on Google to be led in the right direction, which partially defeats the purpose of having BuzzSumo.
I think that BuzzSumo is perfect for large B2C companies. However, B2B and small businesses may have trouble getting their money's worth. For example, BuzzSumo's SEO features and the social media insights don't always apply during the buyer journey for B2B businesses because we often present our content to clients directly -- especially for larger companies. It wouldn't make sense to create content that attracts online visitors if you plan to present the content during a video or in-person meeting. Lastly, the pricing could make it difficult for small businesses, non-profits, etc. to use the platform.
Jordan Comstock | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Buzzsumo to help our content strategy. It is a great source of ideas for what is being talked about, shared, created and produced in the construction world. So it ends up being valuable to the content team at my company as it gives them many of the topics that they use for webinars, blog posts, videos and any other content we produce ourselves.
  • Content analyzer is helpful in finding the most popular topics to focus on
  • Backlinks is a quick way to glance at links that are pointing towards our site
  • Trending now is helpful to make sure we don't miss any big happenings, topics or ideas in the industry. It also helps us find popular articles to link to on our social media
  • It was difficult to get some of the members of the team to use it
  • Feels like with construction there isn't always as many results as I would like to see on some searches
  • Sometimes there are very broad results to searches, and if they are too broad they are just distracting
It is a great way to monitor what is being liked, shared, linked to and talked about. So if you want your social media and content teams to have an edge over competitors that don't use a service like this, it is a must-have. It also saves time and effort with our content efforts since it gives us many topic ideas.
Kaitlin Berg | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Buzzsumo is mainly being used in our organization to keep up on industry trends and for curated content to share on our social media pages. It's an important resource for us to stay up to date on what is trending in the industries we serve, but also give us a great idea of what is "shareable content". Buzzsumo gives us ideas on what people are wanting to read and how the headlines and stories are written to catch peoples' attention.
  • Great for knowing what is trending on certain topics.
  • Need curated content for your social media? This is your resource!
  • Overall "trending now" keeps you up to speed on the type of content people are actually interested in.
  • Free version only give you so many search results.
  • No way to add negative keywords in search results.
  • No suggestions based on previous searches.
It's such a great FREE tool for businesses to use. I would recommend to anyone! Even if whoever doesn't find it particularly helpful for their industry, they will know based on the free version to not invest.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Buzzsumo is used for multiple purposes. Media monitoring in real-time is the most common use case, followed by media research and reporting. It allows our team to find and address coverage for our clients in a timely manner and better understand the industries in which we operate.
  • Media monitoring. Alerts in real-time are crucial for news campaigns.
  • Media research. The ability to search by topic and discover influencers is helpful and quick.
  • Reporting. Pulling keywords or phrases to illustrate market interest is valuable to our teams and our clients.
  • The ability to remove job listings from keyword searches/monitoring.
Buzzsumo is useful as a point solution for media monitoring but is not as useful as a database.
Claire Vanner | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a content executive at a marketing agency, I was responsible for pitching and writing content for clients. I used Buzzsumo as part of my research process to see what was being discussed around a particular topic across Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Google. From this I could determine the topics and tone of content that would resinate with my target audience (as well as which channels would be best to distribute it through). It also identifies "influencers" in the industry, which helps with influencer outreach on social media. I have also used it to see what titles and keywords are popular so that I can shape my own blog titles to attract more traffic.
  • Identifying social influencers
  • Content alerts
  • Gathering popular content
  • Always brings up articles by the same authors (favours influencers)
  • Not always easy to search keywords - often get articles that are irrelevant
  • Cannot search for Instagram influencers
I don't feel like I often get the right information that I'm searching for. Perhaps I am not approaching the use of the tool properly, but these sorts of software should be really user-friendly. And I feel like it often takes me a while to source articles that I am looking for - usually because it turns up results from the same authors (the ones who Buzzsumo identifies as influencers)
But this negative is also a positive - the tool is great for finding influencers in the industry, so you can engage with them on social media, listen and echo their tone of voice and dig into what makes them successful so that you can emulate that yourself.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used Buzzsumo for competitor research, which included taking a look at their social media profiles (Facebook and LinkedIn specifically), seeing their top performing content on social, top times to post, and what types of posts performed well on which platforms. In addition, we used it for backlink research for my client's websites along with their competitors and for influencer research.
  • Link building research
  • Great user experience, easy to navigate and great visuals
  • Great for identifying influencers on a particular topic or in an industry
  • Increasing their range to include more information for smaller sites
  • Being able to export more robust data
  • Suggested influencers, or topics that make sense for your audience
Buzzsumo is well suited for medium to large sites looking to track their backlinks chronologically. It's also great to do competitive research and look into a competitor's social media profile, what kinds of content they're putting out and where they are succeeding. It's less appropriate for smaller sites because Buzzsumo lacks robust information for these sites.
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I utilize Buzzsumo to tracking the shareability of my company's content as well as backlinks that are acquired. I am currently the only one using the tool, but I have proposed it to our PR person to help her track pick up of press releases. This tool helps my content team gauge the impact of their work and titles they use. They can see how social friendly they are as well as what influencers share their work.
  • Showcases backlinks acquired per link.
  • Breaks down the number of shares per social channel.
  • Shows you the influencers who share your content.
  • Brand Mentions of your own brand, words, and competitors.
  • Showing influencers who have shared: They only show Twitter followers and only if more than 20 (I believe) people have shared it.
  • The brand mention tool, like most, picks up mentions close to your company's name. If you have a relatively common name, you'll get a mess of results.
  • The influencer tab is a little bit of a mess as well as they go based on Twitter profiles and I've found bot account mixed into the results at times.
Very well suited for companies looking to showcase the impact social media makes and those who are trying to improve the shareability of their content marketing strategy. It's less appropriate for companies who are just sharing just to share. If you don't have a social media strategy built out yet, do not integrate this tool into the mix as you want receive the full ROI.
September 01, 2016

The Buzz around Buzzsumo

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Buzzsumo is used extensively by our content marketing team, and it is one of my favorite tools for content research and analysis. Personally, I use Buzzsumo for two main purposes:

  • To look up a certain topic and see what has been published and what has been popular and trending regarding this topic
  • Assess the performance of certain content pieces
  • Buzzsumo can show the engagement (likes, shares) for different content pieces across different social media platforms (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter).
  • Buzzsumo can show the most popular content piece on social media for any given topic.
  • Buzzsumo can be used to search for the most trending topic at a given moment.
  • Sometimes Buzzsumo doesn't show data for individual pages on a blog with specific URLs.
Buzzsumo is perfect for content research and analysis, and even for comparing the content performance between competitors. It's also great to see how well the content for your website has been performing over time on social media, and assess what topics audiences care about so we can curate content accordingly. The backlink function on Buzzsumo is a great addition, even though I typically rely on other tools for backlinks.
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