we live in a world where there is new content and new articles being published by the thousands each and every minute
and that can make it very difficult
as a consumer
as someone who is wanting to stay on top of a particular topic
or to browse even one of their favorite websites
to find the articles
to find the postings that are most either relevant to them
or worth their time
I mean think about it
the average blog post is somewhere in the range of 500 to a thousand words
it's going to take you a couple of minutes for you to sit through and read it
and you're hoping
you're hoping when you start that particular article that it is worth your time
well today I want to share with you a website that I find myself using more and more frequently to help me do just that
help me to find articles
help me to find content that is worth my time
and to see what other people are sharing
to see what other people are viewing as well
now the website is called BuzzSumo
and you can find it at buzzsumo.com
and let me just walk you through what BuzzSumo does
and how I use it to find content that is most relevant to me
and at the very least help me find content that other people are sharing
so all you need to do to use BuzzSumo is to use this search bar here
and you can search either by topic
you can search by keyword
now keywords are a little limited
they only limit you to about two keywords
if you start entering in more than two keywords you'll find that your results are not nearly as good
or you can decide to search by a particular domain
so let's type in productivity shall we
and let's see what it brings back
I'm going to search for productivity
and I haven't changed any of my filters here on the left-hand side
so by default it's going to bring me back all of the articles
all the content from the past year
but you
it's going to sort it by the number of total shares
so what BuzzSumo is doing
it is looking at all of the shares on the five major social media platforms
we've got Facebook
we've got LinkedIn
we've got Twitter
and Google+
and by default it is going to display these results by the total number of shares
right
because that might vary by the type of content that you're looking at
some may have many more Facebook shares while others may have many more LinkedIn shares
you can see here in these first two results
this first article from ENCOM
many many more Facebook engagements
however this second article from the same domain is almost equal between Facebook shares and LinkedIn shares
so it's taking a look at this topic that I've put in here
productivity
and it's bringing back all of the articles which have been published within the past year
and sorting them by total number of shares
now maybe I want something a little more up-to-date or a little more current than just the past year
well I can use any of these preset filters here
maybe I just want to look at the past month
I hit that radio button
and now it has adjusted my filter here
now I can see articles that are just specific to the past month
now I am NOT a pro user of BuzzSumo
so they will limit you to about 10 articles when you are searching by domain
but I find that is just enough for me to look through the content which it is listed here
and find at least a handful of articles that are worth my time
my theory being this
that if thousands upon thousands of people are sharing this content
chances are it's worth my time
or at least worth browsing the headline
or at least the opening paragraph
I mean if a piece of content is not being shared in any way shape or form
chances are it's probably not worth your time either
so let's see how it works if we choose to enter in a domain name
I like to visit Lifehacker once in a while
and lifehacker.com produces an awful lot of content in a single day
I certainly don't have enough time to browse through all of their content
so often I will come to BuzzSumo
I'll type in lifehacker.com
and maybe I'll select the past week radio button
and now I can see what are the most popular articles
what are the most popular pieces of content from lifehacker.com during that past week
now I don't have to browse through literally hundreds of different posts
hundreds of different articles that Lifehacker produces on a regular basis
I can just see a short summary
sort of a best-of
now they may not in fact be the very best articles
but they are certainly being shared a lot
and that's a hint that at least other people are finding it interesting
or other people are wanting to share it with others
so chances are I might find a few things in here that I'll want to read
that I'll want to consume as well
now of course you can filter in a few other ways beyond just a time frame
beyond just the filter by date
down below we have a few other options
we have an in-depth articles only
not exactly sure if this is restricting things to
journals
things that are recognized
like actual published journals
but you can choose an option there
you can filter by language
you can filter by country
you can also filter out certain domains
you can include only certain domains or exclude certain domains
and then at the very end you can even go granular in terms of the type of content that the results will bring back
articles
infographics
you can include videos
or you could exclude videos if you like as well
and of course you can always change the default order
if you don't want to look by total shares
you can always look by the number of Facebook shares for example
and change which way that the results are listed
but I find BuzzSumo can be a very very helpful tool to see what is trending
see what you may have missed in the past
I'll give you one other example which I find is very very helpful
sometimes I'll go out a bit further
let's let's change this filter to the past six months
the reason I choose this is that once in a while
and perhaps more frequently than we think
there may be an article or there may be a piece of content from your favorite website
or at least a favorite topic or subject of yours
that was not very popular in the first 24 hours
or in the first week that it was published
but if it was a quality piece of writing
if it was a very helpful piece of content
chances are that gained more and more shares over time
so once in a while I will go back to 6 months or even the past year
on a favorite topic or maybe a favorite website
a favorite domain of mine
so I can review and look back at that content
so I would encourage you to check out BuzzSumo
the free version will allow you to retrieve the top 5 pieces of content from any particular domain
and the top 10 pieces of content from any keyword or subject
and that includes all of the filtering that you can include here on the left-hand side
check out buzzsumo.com and see what is interesting to you
see what other people are sharing when it comes to topics that you are most interested in
I'd love to hear your feedback
and if you have used BuzzSumo yourself
especially if you're a content creator
BuzzSumo can be an excellent tool to see what else is trending amongst your competitors
against other people who are talking about the same things that you are
I'd love to hear your comments in the section below
and if you like this video please give it a thumbs up
and be sure to subscribe to the Simpletivity channel
remember being productive does not need to be difficult
in fact it's very simple
