Recently I shared with you three tools you can use for automatic content discovery. In the case of Buffer, it supplied you with curated content; Klout and Hootsuite gave you the opportunity to personalize the content that was provided to you.
While those three tools are absolutely fantastic for helping you find and discover new content to share with your audience, they are most definitely not the only content discovery tools in the game. One tool that I use regularly, and one mentioned in the comments of that article, is BuzzSumo.
BuzzSumo is a content search engine that I guarantee will change how you find your content and the way you look at content discovery in general. It is extremely easy to use and yet very powerful, which is why it should be a tool that you get familiar with sooner rather than later.
Let's take a look at how to use BuzzSumo, including some of its advanced features.
Could BuzzSumo be the only content discovery tool you need?
Content Discovery Made Easy
Log In to Buzzsumo, enter your search term and hit enter. That's it, it really is that simple.
The search results will then return a list of content based on social popularity ranked from highest to lowest that you can then filter through and use to share to your own social networks.
A quick search for "content marketing" in BuzzSumo yield fantastic content results.
While if this was all BuzzSumo did it would be pretty awesome the beauty of this service is in what else it can do for you as well.
BuzzSumo is also extremely powerful because of the ability you have to use advanced search options, filter results by content type and date range, sort by social sharing and the ability to also find influencers around a topic. Now that you're familiar with how a basic search works in BuzzSumo let's explore a few of the things you can do with BuzzSumo to help you up your content discovery game.
Advanced Search
Advanced search operators are a powerful way to narrow in on the exact content you are looking for.
Just like Google has its advanced search operators, BuzzSumo allows for some advanced searches as well. These allow you to create pin point accurate searches that help you zero in on the exact content you are looking for.
For example if you need an exact phrase match you can enclose your search in quote marks: "My Search"
Or if you don't want to include a domain in the search results you can include a minus sign: search-domain.com
If you wanted to know the most popular socially shared content from a domain simply search for the domain: domain.com
If you were researching a topic and needed results based on multiple terms you can use the OR to accomplish this: search1 OR Search2
The advanced search is a powerful feature and when combined with multiple advanced search operators can help you find the exact content you are looking for quickly and efficiently. There are more advanced search operators and BuzzSumo has a write on them all here: BuzzSumo Advanced Search Operators
Type And Date Filters
If you're looking for a specific type of content such as a video or infographic or need to find something from within a specific date range the type and date filters are extremely handy for helping you narrow in on what you are looking for.
Sort By Shares
Another interesting feature that can help you discover new content that your network may not have seen is the sort by shares feature. This allows you to sort the results based on overall shares or by social network. If you see that one piece of content is getting traction on Twitter but not much on Facebook it may be an opportunity to get it in front of your audience alternatively you could share already popular content on that social network to your own social network in hopes of tailgating off of the success it already has.
Share Content
BuzzSumo is integrated to share with the big social networks along with Buffer and Pocket. This means you can find the content and share it without ever having to leave the site, saving you time each day.
View Sharers
Here's a great way to find influencers around topics after entering in a search term (or even a domain name) you can hit the View Sharers and see the top influencers who have shared the content. This is also a great way to view who has shared your content and determine who is most active in your audience for sharing your content.
Influencer Search
Along with searching for content, BuzzSumo is surprisingly powerful in helping you search for and find influencers around topics. Choose Influencers instead of Top Content before beginning a search, enter your topic and BuzzSumo will return a list of influencers for you to start following and engaging with.
Overall
BuzzSumo is an incredibly easy to use and powerful tool that makes content discovery and sharing as easy as search. The only issue that I have with BuzzSumo as compared to other tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite where content discovery is automatic, with BuzzSumo you have to put the work into finding the content but with the ability to save searches you can overcome this limitation and speed up yoru workflow.
Final Thoughts
Content is an integral part of your social strategy. Sharing high quality, relevant content that your audience is interested in goes a long way in growing that audience and for increasing conversations within your network. The right tools can make this process a lot less involving and a lot less time consuming, freeing you up to get back to creating content, engaging with your audience and running your business.
Over To You
What is your favourite content discovery tool?
The post BuzzSumo: One Content Discovery Tool To Rule Them All? appeared first on Social 360.