Buzzsumo is an excellent tool for content marketers to get their hands on. But, do you know how it works? Do you have some questions regarding certain aspects? If so, you’re in luck. We’ve created this handy guide for all of you content enthusiasts, looking to get the most out of Buzzsumo.
What is Buzzsumo?
First off, let’s start with the basics. For all content marketing lovers, Buzzsumo is a platform which allows you to search and find topics which are generating a ‘buzz’ all over the web. It is the ultimate helpline when looking for a sense of direction with a content marketing strategy. So, when you’re searching for content ideas that won’t be a waste time and budget, it’s worth heading to Buzzsumo to see what’s working in the world. After all, we learn from our competitors, so why not stay one step ahead to avoid making the same mistakes they did?
What are Buzzsumo’s main features? How will they benefit my business?
The great thing about Buzzsumo is that is doesn’t just stop at viewing a list of the most engaged-with content. There are a variety of other features and tools that’ll make your research experience stronger than ever before! Below, we discuss some of the most popular features which are worth trying out.
Content insights
Sometimes, viewing the number of shares a piece of content has isn’t enough. Thanks to Buzzsumo’s content insights tool, you can get a comprehensive report on much, much more. The content insights tool allows you to pick apart:
📈 Topic overviews – understand the average amount of shares each topic gets.
📈 Which platforms are giving the content the most traction – where will your content work best?
📈 The type of material used (video, infographics, articles, etc) – which is most popular for your desired topic?
📈 Most shared domains – which domains should you be pitching your content to?
📈 Content length – what length of content do your audience prefer?
📈 Popular headlines – use the popular headlines as inspiration for your own.
📈 Best days to publish – what days will your content get the most engagement? When are users most active?
Competitor analysis
Competitor analysis is vital when planning a content marketing strategy; or any marketing strategy for that matter. Establishing the performance of your competitor’s own campaigns will help you to discover what works well and what doesn’t. Why make the same mistakes they did when it clearly didn’t work? Buzzsumo’s competitive intelligence tool helps you to keep on top of just that. You’ll never have to worry about falling behind again! With the help from this tool, you can analyse the following:
🥇 Competitors most shared content – simply search your competitor’s domain, and you’ll discover a neat list of their most popular pieces of content.
🥇 View sharers – see who is sharing your competitors content. This can come in handy when figuring out what they do to get such high engagement.
🥇 Alerts – turn on alerts and you’ll be notified whenever your competitor publishes content. Again, keeping you from falling behind. This feature can also be applied to content, keywords, backlinks, and so on.
🥇 Reports – Buzzsumo can generate a variety of competitor reports for you; from analysing their success to comparing it with your own.
Influencer marketing
The last feature of Buzzsumo which we are going to talk about is the influencer marketing tool. Now, influencer marketing/outreach is an essential part of any organic search campaign; if you have strong contacts, then they’ll be able to share your content with a huge audience which wouldn’t have been possible before. But where do you begin?
With help from Buzzsumo’s influencer marketing tools, you’ll be able to discover and understand influencers more than ever before. Here’s a quick rundown:
⭐ Find influencers suited to your topics or location
⭐ Analyse influencers to understand their authority
⭐ Follow influencers
⭐ See what your influencers are sharing
⭐ Export data
⭐ Maintain influencer lists for outreach
How does Buzzsumo collect data?
Buzzsumo is full to the brim of reliable information regarding content on the web, old and new. It’s no surprise that some users can feel overwhelmed with all the knowledge right at their fingertips! For those wondering how Buzzsumo collects data, it probably won’t come as a surprise that the answer is a technical one. Steve Rayson, the co-founder of Buzzsumo, explained: “we crawl sites not unlike Google. We use public APIs to get share counts for each URL. We also buy share data from Gnip for Twitter as there is no longer a public endpoint for Twitter share counts. We use Elastic Search as the core search engine.”
If that went straight over your head, then don’t worry, it does with most people. Basically, Buzzsumo has several different techniques for extracting data, in order to provide us with share counts, trending topics, etc.
Is Buzzsumo worth using in a digital marketing agency?
As a digital marketing agency, we often find ourselves using Buzzsumo to help aid our creative flow. So, whether it be in content meetings with the designers, or outreach meetings with the link building and digital PR team; Buzzsumo is always there to point us in the right direction. There’s no shame in using tools to help your creative process – especially if you want to be sure that your campaign will get results!
If you’re looking to boost the way your workforce performs, check out this Behind The Bulldog episode below. We discuss our favourite tools and our Lead Designer, Reece, talks about his love for Buzzsumo!
