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BuzzSumo

Content Marketing

Content research and social media analytics platform

Founded 2013London, UKsubscriptionFrom $199/month (Content Creation plan)Free TrialVerified · Sep 2026
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About BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a content intelligence platform that helps marketers discover trending topics, analyse competitor content performance, identify influencers, and monitor brand mentions across the web.

Editorial Assessment

BuzzSumo is a UK-based content research and influencer discovery platform founded in 2014 by Henley Wing and James Blackwell and acquired by Brandwatch in 2017. The platform has become a go-to tool for content marketers, SEOs, and PR professionals who need data-driven insights about what content performs best on social media and which influencers and journalists amplify it. BuzzSumo's core functionality centers on content discovery: users can search any topic or domain to see which articles, videos, or infographics have received the most social shares, backlinks, and engagement across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, and the web. This makes it exceptionally useful for content gap analysis, competitive content benchmarking, and trend spotting. The platform's journalist and influencer search helps PR teams identify the right writers and creators to pitch — filtering by topic authority, audience size, and engagement rates rather than just follower count. BuzzSumo's Question Analyzer aggregates real questions from Reddit, Quora, forums, and Q&A sites around any keyword, giving content teams direct insight into what their audience wants to know. Its 'Content Ideas Generator' and trending content alerts round out the content planning workflow. A newer addition is BuzzSumo's Brand Monitoring feature, which tracks brand mentions across news and the web — though this is shallower than dedicated tools like Brand24 or Meltwater. BuzzSumo does not track organic search rankings or provide technical SEO auditing; it is purely a content strategy and research tool. Competing tools include SparkToro (audience research), Ahrefs Content Explorer, and Semrush's content tools — Ahrefs Content Explorer in particular overlaps significantly at a lower marginal cost for existing Ahrefs subscribers.

Strengths
  • Best-in-class content performance data — shows what content gets the most social shares and backlinks by topic
  • Question Analyzer surfaces real audience questions from Reddit, Quora, and forums for content planning
  • Journalist and influencer search with topic relevance filters — better for PR outreach than generic influencer tools
  • Competitive content analysis — see what's working for any competitor domain
  • 5-year+ historical content data on many topics enables trend and seasonality analysis
Limitations
  • No organic keyword ranking data — not an SEO rank tracker
  • No technical SEO auditing — purely content research and strategy
  • Social share counts have declined in accuracy since Facebook stopped publicly sharing share counts
  • Ahrefs Content Explorer offers significant overlap for existing Ahrefs subscribers at no added cost

Best For

Content marketers building editorial calendars based on what's proven to perform PR teams identifying journalists and influencers to pitch on specific topics SEO agencies and in-house teams doing content gap and competitor content analysis

Not Ideal For

Businesses needing keyword rank tracking or technical SEO auditingSocial media managers — BuzzSumo does not support scheduling or publishingVery small businesses where cost of a dedicated content research tool isn't justified

Key Features

Content discovery — top-performing articles by topic sorted by social shares and backlinksQuestion Analyzer — surfaces questions from Reddit, Quora, forums, and AmazonJournalist and influencer search by topic, authority, and engagementCompetitor content analysis — see what content earns most engagement for any domainBrand monitoring for mentions across news and webTrending content alerts via email or SlackYouTube, Reddit, and Twitter-specific content research

Who It's For

Content marketing teams at agencies and in-housePR professionals and communications teamsSEO agencies using content as a link building strategySocial media and brand marketing managers

Integrations

HubSpotBufferSlackZapier

Platforms

Web

Founders

  • Henley Wing
  • James Blackwell

Products & Tools

BuzzSumo Content ResearchContent Research
Visit

Content performance research platform showing top-shared articles, trends, question analysis, and competitor content benchmarking.

subscription · Free trialFrom $199/month
Top-shared content by topicQuestion AnalyzerCompetitor content analysisTrending alertsHistorical content data
BuzzSumo Influencer & Journalist SearchInfluencer & PR Outreach
Visit

Search and filter journalists, bloggers, and influencers by topic expertise, audience size, and engagement rates for PR outreach.

subscriptionFrom Included in PR plan
Topic-based journalist searchInfluencer filtering by engagementContact information (on eligible plans)Outreach trackingAuthority score

Sources & Verification

Last reviewed September 2026

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Tags

Content ResearchTrending TopicsInfluencer DiscoverySocial Shares

Category

SaaS Companies

Content Marketing

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Official Website

buzzsumo.com

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