Imagine if, way back in 2008, you had the idea that it might be valuable to track analytics data on social media channels, particularly on an emerging platform like YouTube. You’d be pretty ahead of the curve.
Well, that’s exactly what Social Blade did. From their founding in 2008, they’ve made it easy to track YouTube and a large array of different social networks, including TikTok, Twitch, Instagram, and Facebook.
So, you might be wondering why you’ve never heard of it. Social Blade is immensely popular in the world of creators. It’s long been the platform of choice for influencers who need data on subscriber counts, churn rate, and more to help their channels perform better.
You can get a good snapshot of important data just by visiting their site. But when you upgrade to a premium subscription, you’ll get access, including information on top influencers on each platform.
With plans starting from $3.99/month, it’s definitely worth considering to help enhance your marketing research. In this review, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about Social Blade to help you see if it’s the right fit for your next campaign.
What Is Social Blade?
Social Blade is quick and easy analytics. If you have used a social platform, you’ll know just how complicated getting a complete picture of your page performance can be.
With Social Blade, however, the valuable insights don’t come as much from your own accounts but from your competitors’. Social Blade tracks data from everywhere you want to be, including up and coming platforms.
Supported social networks include:
- TikTok
- Twitch
- Dailymotion
Basic statistics are currently free for anybody using their website or mobile app. They currently track 5+ million Twitch channels, 206+ thousand Daily Motion users, and 416+ thousand Mixer Streamers. Each month, 7 million unique visitors check out the site, so you’re in good company.
Effectively, if you are building a brand, are a content creator, or entering the world of streaming, then Social Blade has the valuable analytics you need.
Upgrading to premium gets you top lists, longer data history, premium data charts, and other useful data.
Social Blade Features
- Social analytics
- Influencer search
- Campaign Analytics
- Competitor Monitoring
- Customizable Reports
- Engagement Tracking
- Favorite lists
- Mobile app
Getting Started With Social Blade
Social Blade has some incredibly valuable information you can get without signing up for an account or paying a single dime. The free version of the site lets you type in just about any YouTube channel name (and other platform information) and get valuable data on subscribers, video views, rankings, and estimated yearly earnings.
However, you’ll have to set up an account and upgrade to really see what you can do with Social Blade. Doing so is really easy and all done via PayPal to ensure a secure transaction.
From here, you’ll be taken to your personal dashboard, where you can begin taking advantage of other Social Blade features.
There is no real tutorial since everything is super simple and straightforward. You can then check top lists, favorite accounts, and take a look at some reports.
Don’t expect too much help, though. Their blog isn’t updated too often, and there is no live support team. You have to send a request via email. Still, the data is useful, and since the software is so simple, the chance of you ever needing assistance is pretty slim.
Social Blade Pricing
Social Blade has four plans starting from $3.99/month or $40.08 billed annually. Check out the differences between them below:
Of course, you’ll really need to be on the Silver or Gold Plan to extract real value from Social Blade. The Top Lists are what you’re paying for. And while we’d all love to score an influencer partnership with one of the highest-ranked Twitch Stars, that’s likely out of most people’s budgets. However, you could strike up an affordable deal with the 341st most popular. Social Blade helps you identify that person so you can start informed and fruitful discussions.
And if you compare it to something like NinjaOutreach, which starts at $119/month or the equivalent BuzzSumo plan at $99/month, then Social Blade seems quite the bargain.
Social Blade Features
Social Blade has an array of features that can help you drive more value from your social media campaigns. Here are some of the things we love about it:
1. Quick Information About Social Media Profiles
Sometimes you just want quick answers to the important questions like subscriber count, churn rate, and monthly trends. With Social Blade, there is no bloatware and complications. Just enter and search. This makes research so much more effective.
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It also connects related accounts so you can get a quick look at the industry as a whole.
2. Top Lists
The Top Lists feature alone is why you pay for an upgraded subscription. The Top List lets you see exactly who is ranking, how many subscribers they have, and their estimated monthly and yearly earnings.
This is the information you need to know for how to build better content for your own campaign and approach influencers, set budgets, and more.
3. Live Counts
Live streaming is a huge business these days. But things change quickly with it. While some channels are ever-popular, others bounce around. With Social Blade, you can see counts in real-time to see exactly how your audience reacts to your latest content.
4. Account Authentication
You’re not going to start anywhere near the top. With new accounts, it’s unlikely you’ll even be able to get your analytics even noticed until you reach a certain view count.
With Social Blade, you can authenticate your account to get them added to the Social Blade databases. This makes it easier to pull analytics from the start so you can take advantage of the analytics data and monitoring ASAP.
5. Compare
Social Blade allows you to compare data between channels on YouTube, Twitter, and Twitch. This allows you to see exactly how well you stack up against the competition. You can track growth rate, revenue, views, and even future predictions.
Who Should Use Social Blade?
While Social Blade seems most focused on video streaming platforms, it also provides excellent insights on other huge names like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This, plus its focus on the newest platforms, is a real win.
While we don’t love everything about Social Blade, most digital marketers can benefit from at least using the free plan to dig up valuable information about both your competitors and potential opportunities.
Likewise, YouTube marketing has exploded in popularity during the last couple of years. Even small businesses can benefit from getting analytics on their competitors to see if it’s worth it for them to jump into this type of marketing approach or not.
Is Social Blade Worth It?
The free version by itself provides you with truly valuable insights. But the paid plans provide you access to these ever-so-important influencer lists and at a really cheap price compared to the alternatives.
The only tricky issue is whether an annual subscription is worth it. For serious video marketers, then these analytics will be helpful. But if you’re just using it for research and identifying influencer opportunities, you can probably get away with monthly subscriptions here and there as you need them.
Pros
- Tracks data across several platforms
- Very affordable plans
- Accurate data
- Mobile app
- Easy-to-use
- Compare feature is very useful
- Can get up to the top 5000 influencers making it great for identifying opportunities
- Can track trends over time
Cons
- Email support only
- UI is a bit dated
- Blog isn’t updated very often
- Would be nice if there were direct influencer outreach support
Social Blade Alternatives
Few other options are as streamlined, focused, and easy-to-use as Social Blade. Here is how Social Blade stacks up to two of its competitors, NinjaOutreach and BuzzSumo:
Tools | NinjaOutreach | Social Blade | BuzzSumo |
Send multiple contacts at once | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
Content prospecting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Manual list import | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
Influencer prospecting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Team Performance Reporting | ✗ | X | ✗ |
Templates | ✓ | X | ✗ |
Follow-up Emails | ✓ | X | ✗ |
Click Tracking | ✓ | X | ✗ |
Outreach Scheduling | ✓ | X | ✗ |
Webinars | ✓ | ✓ | |
Customer Support | ✓ | X | ✓ |
Custom Pricing Available | ✓ | X | ✓ |
Trial Period | ✓ | X | ✓ |
Starting Price: | $119/monthly | $3.99 | $24.99 ($99.99 for similar plan to Ninja Outreach) |
Social Blade clearly doesn’t have as many features as these options. But it’s way cheaper than either of them. If you want a highly affordable social analytics option, this is it. On the other hand, if you want integrated outreach, you will have to spend a bit more and opt for one of these alternatives.
Social Blade Review
- Features
- Pricing
- Ease of Use
- Support
- Overall
3.9
Summary
Social Blade is a leading authority for news and insights on the digital media industry. They provide statistics on the internet’s leading social media platforms like Twitch, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Mixer, Dailymotion, DLive, TikTok, and StoryFire and include insight-powered industry reporting. Social Blade gives all users access to a public database which is able to provide you with global analytics for any content creator, live streamer, or brand. Is Social Blade truly all it claims to be? Find out in our Social Blade review.