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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

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius 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

(1-13 of 13)
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Jason Myers | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Our agency uses BuzzSumo across the organization with a daily focus on the PR department who uses the advanced monitoring features.
  • Monitors for client PR placements and notifies via email and Slack alerts
  • Helps us research potential journalists writing about the topics relevant to our clients
  • Displays trending web and social content clearly with relevant metrics
  • Allows us to view what's working for our clients' competitors in the media
  • We've been wanting them to offer an affiliate program for years as we've sent much business their way and would appreciate a chance to participate in that success.
It's well suited for marketing agencies of all sizes who need to quickly monitor the placements of their clients in the media. It's helpful to professional content creators to see how existing content and topics are performing online.

It's perhaps less appropriate for a single freelance user with a limited budget who could do much of that work for free online, albeit with far greater consumption of their most valuable resource - time.
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 helps our team keep track of everything that is happening online, especially social media, in order to determine what is popular and shift our strategy based on these key pieces of information that are provided by the software. It allows us to organically improve our social media engagement and content, as well as our blog engagement and content.
  • It is definitely helpful and provides benefits
  • It gives us insights into what it takes to make great content
  • It gives us insights into what can help us perform better on social media
  • Tells us what type of content is trending
  • [I believe] the interface could definitely be improved.
  • Some of the navigating of the software is a bit difficult [in my experience].
  • Broad focus so [I feel it] doesn't do some individual tasks as well as other software.
BuzzSumo is great for finding out what is popular online so that you can know what to post about and be able to hop on trends.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BuzzSumo is an excellent tool that allows us to keep track of everything on social media and beyond in order to change and direct our marketing strategies in a way that makes sense. It also allows us to be able to find influencers when we are looking for them for a niche topic or hashtag.
  • They do influencer marketing very well.
  • Finding trends and informing on popular content on social media for that particular day or time period.
  • Research is a component that BuzzSumo does very well.
  • The interface could be improved as some of the references to text are specific to how a certain company may mention it.
  • The price would be better if it was less.
  • Some of the information is not filtered properly or could be filtered better as it is not relevant.
BuzzSumo is an excellent tool if you have any social channels and want to conduct research.
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.
Nathan Richardson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
BambooHR is known for having a competitive advantage in the realm of content marketing and the blogosphere. Buzzsumo has helped us gain this reputation. Buzzsumo is one of the best platforms for discovery and ideation. They're also getting better at helping you take the next steps following ideation. We find that Buzzsumo gets a lot of use both from our SEO/Content Strategy teams and our Copy/Creative teams as well, which is really saying something. Buzzsumo is pretty versatile, and it keeps getting better!
  • Clean interface and UX
  • Accurate data
  • Wide variety of topic/query suggestions
  • Features
  • Functionality
  • More robust SEO tools
Buzzsumo is particularly helpful for entry/mid-level marketers that need a good starter tool for the ideation phase. The tool isn't quite as useful, nor does it get as much use, from our more seasoned marketers. I attribute this to a relatively basic set of features. I'd like to see them come out with some new ones for more of our veteran marketers.
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.
Charles Chy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use BuzzSumo to figure out which topics are trending on social media so we can plan out our social media content more effectively. I'm not sure what other tool could do this for us so it gets first place by default! Just kidding. Overall, we find the information provided affordable and insightful.
  • Social Media Trends
  • Influencers
  • User Interface
  • Customer Service
BuzzSumo is really great to identify hot topics and trending ideas that we use to develop our social media content. What's the point in writing something if no one cares about that topic? By pre-informing our content with research from BuzzSumo we make sure that all of our posts have really high engagement!
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.
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.
June 23, 2017

Good but not great

Stephanie Reed | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Buzzsumo is used only by me as the sole person responsible for marketing. We have started using it after the need arose for scheduling and tracking more social media posts and develop a social media strategy. However, we have used it only at times, not all the times, due to other apps being more immediate and easier to use.
  • Scheduling messages
  • Monitoring threads and keywords on social media
  • It's quite clunky and not user-friendly.
  • It should be a bit smarter, especially in terms of scheduling times, etc. I feel that other platforms have smarter features.
If you are a small business with very little money, then I would consider using its free version, as it does the job, but it will not shorten your time for doing social media marketing really. If you were a bigger company looking for a more solid solution, then I think there are better alternatives on the market.
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