sales-buzzsumo

What this skill does

# BuzzSumo Platform Help

## Step 1 — Gather context

If `references/learnings.md` exists, read it first for accumulated platform knowledge.

Ask the user:

1. **What do you need help with?**
   - A) Finding trending content or content ideas
   - B) Researching competitor content performance
   - C) Finding journalists or influencers
   - D) Setting up monitoring alerts
   - E) Using the BuzzSumo API for automation
   - F) Understanding pricing / whether BuzzSumo is worth it
   - G) Something else — describe it

2. **What's your plan?**
   - A) Content Creation ($199/mo)
   - B) PR & Comms ($299/mo)
   - C) Suite ($499/mo)
   - D) Enterprise ($999/mo)
   - E) Not sure / evaluating

3. **What's your primary use case?**
   - A) Content marketing — finding what to write about
   - B) PR / media outreach — finding journalists
   - C) Competitive intelligence — seeing what works for competitors
   - D) Influencer discovery — finding who shares content in my space
   - E) API integration — pulling data into my own tools

**If the user's request already provides most of this context, skip directly to the relevant step.**

## Step 2 — Route or answer directly

| If the question is about... | Route to... |
|---|---|
| Social listening strategy across tools | `/sales-social-listening [question]` |
| Media relations strategy (not BuzzSumo-specific) | `/sales-media-relations [question]` |
| Influencer marketing strategy | `/sales-influencer-marketing [question]` |
| SEO / keyword research | `/sales-seo [question]` |
| Content enablement for sales reps | `/sales-content [question]` |

If it's a BuzzSumo-specific question, continue to Step 3.

## Step 3 — BuzzSumo platform reference

**Read `references/platform-guide.md`** for the full platform reference — capabilities, pricing, data model, API details, integration recipes, code examples.

Answer the user's question using only the relevant section. Don't dump the full reference.

## Step 4 — Actionable guidance

Focus on the user's specific situation:

- **Content research**: Start with Content Analyzer using domain filters and date ranges. Use Question Analyzer for long-tail topic ideas. Compare against competitor domains.
- **Journalist outreach**: Filter media database by beat, recency of publishing, and social engagement. Export to your outreach tool.
- **API integration**: Start with the Search API for content data. Account API for alerts/projects management. Monitor your 100-call monthly limit.
- **Value assessment**: Compare against Ahrefs Content Explorer ($199/mo with full SEO suite) or Exploding Topics ($39/mo for trend detection only).

If you discover a gotcha or tip not covered in `references/learnings.md`, append it there.

## Gotchas

> *Best-effort from research — review these, especially items about plan-gated features and integration gotchas that may be outdated.*

- **API limits are extremely low** — free API key gives only 100 Search API calls/month. Need more? Must apply and get approved case-by-case.
- **No free plan** — discontinued in 2025. Only a 30-day trial with 50 total searches (not per month).
- **Media Database is PR & Comms+ only** — Content Creation plan ($199/mo) has no journalist access.
- **RSS Feed Sync is Enterprise only** ($999/mo) — can't pipe feeds to Zapier/IFTTT on lower plans without manual setup.
- **Share counts may be inaccurate** — Facebook deprecated public share counts; BuzzSumo metrics are best-effort estimates for some platforms.
- **B2B content coverage is weaker** — platform indexes viral/high-share content better than niche B2B articles with low social engagement.
- **Slack integration requires PR & Comms+** — Content Creation plan has no Slack alerts.

## Related skills

- `/sales-social-listening` — Social listening strategy, platform comparison, monitoring setup
- `/sales-media-relations` — Media relations strategy, journalist databases, pitch writing
- `/sales-influencer-marketing` — Influencer marketing strategy across platforms
- `/sales-seo` — SEO strategy, content optimization, keyword research
- `/sales-do` — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: `npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do -a claude-code`

## Examples

**Example 1**: "What content is performing best for my competitor?"
→ Use Content Analyzer: search competitor's domain, filter by last 6 months, sort by total engagements. Compare their top 10 articles against yours. Look for topic gaps they're winning on.

**Example 2**: "How do I find journalists who cover AI startups?"
→ PR & Comms plan required. Filter media database by beat "artificial intelligence" + "startups", sort by recent publication activity. Check their social engagement metrics to prioritize active journalists over dormant ones.

**Example 3**: "How do I pull trending articles into my own dashboard via the API?"
→ Use Search API: `GET https://api.buzzsumo.com/search/articles.json?q=your+topic&api_key=YOUR_KEY`. Parse the JSON response for article URLs, share counts, and publication dates. Mind the 100 calls/month limit — cache aggressively.

## Troubleshooting

**Content search returns irrelevant results**
Filter by date range (last 3-6 months), specific domains, and minimum engagement thresholds. Use exact phrase matching with quotes. Exclude known noise domains. For B2B content, try searching specific industry publications rather than broad topic keywords.

**API calls exhausting too quickly**
With only 100 Search API calls/month on free keys, cache every response locally. Batch requests by building comprehensive queries (multiple keywords in one call). Consider if Ahrefs Content Explorer API ($199/mo with 1000x more capacity) better suits your volume needs.

**Trending feeds show nothing relevant to my niche**
BuzzSumo trends skew toward high-volume B2C content. For niche topics: use Content Analyzer with specific industry terms instead of Trending Feeds. Set up Monitoring Alerts with narrow keyword combinations for your specific space.