Isn't Buzzsumo Just A Measure Of Advertising Budget?

[T0BY]

Hello,

I see Buzzsumo being widely touted as a great way of seeing what other people are writing on a niche topic to give an indication of what is performing well according to the number of social media shares.  Is this a good metric considering that any proportion of the shares could be paid for or secondary to advertising?  I have looked at some of the sharers and often there is no data logged, or only a few listed.  I see that often the longer posts have more shares; if I had written a 7000 word post I would be more likely to push it harder on social media and spend more promoting it, I wonder if this is skewing the data also.

Thanks for your opinions on this.

Toby

[T0BY]

Thanks!

Toby

[Highland]

While it's possible that advertising is skewing this, it's also important to note that Social advertising doesn't work the same way as regular ads. Social ads simply place you in front of people who would not otherwise see your posts. So you're basically paying CPM but any Likes/Shares are incumbent on the people who see the ads to respond in that way. Granted you can still go viral without that, but it's much rarer nowadays. Most people boost social with ads but I wouldn't necessarily classify those differently. A like from an ad still means they're following/engaged with you.