Buzzstream is a popular service that lets you find influencers to work with and content to share.
Influencer marketing is important. As both email marketing and social media marketing get more competitive, it is important to be able to stand out from the crowd and be heard in the noise.
Influencer marketing is a type of marketing in which companies focus on specific users (influencers) to promote their products, services, or brands. The goal of this form of marketing is to get people talking about your brand so as to influence purchase decisions.
There are more high-profile influencers in the market, but picking the right fit for your brand can be a challenging task.
According to a study by Statista, it is expected that around 4.62 billion dollars will be used as influencer marketing budget by 2023 in the United States only.
According to Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report, 77 percent of businesses plan on including influencer marketing in their digital marketing strategy.
However, Buzzstream is not the only influencer marketing research platform. Today, we will go over five great alternatives to Buzzstream.
Best Buzzstream Alternatives
1. Ninja Outreach
Ninja Outreach is one of the largest influencer marketing research platforms out there. It makes it easy to find influencers, whether you’re looking for micro-influencers or macro-influencers.
Using the search tool, you can find influencers on both Instagram and Twitter. Using the filters, you can find influencers who meet your specific needs (such as audience size) and who work in your niche.
For each influencer, you will see important data. For example, you can see their follower count as well as their engagement rates – such as how many likes and replies they get per average per post.
Reaching out to these influencers is easy. Not only don’t you have to send an email to each one individually, but you don’t even have to copy and paste any contact information.
Just add an influencer you like to your list of leads and their contact information and names will be automatically filled in. You can send a bulk email to all of the influencers on your list.
You can also schedule automated reach outs and follow-ups for further efficiency and higher reply rates.
There is a built-in CRM that makes it easy to manage your communications with the influencers in your list. For each contact, you will see their status (such as whether you just reached out to them or they already shared a sponsored post).
You will also see when your last contact with them was. In your dashboard, you will see how many new replies you got and how many emails you need to send.
You can also set it up so you get notified whenever a lead replies.
You can also add individual notes for each influencer. By tagging them into different segments, you can make finding the right influencers on your lists easier.
You can customize which influencers receive which automated messages and follow-ups based on their relationship with you. You don’t want to be sending the same email to people who you are trying to get in touch with and people who have already granted you a sponsored post.
In addition, if you don’t want to write your own outreach messages, you can use any of the pre-made outreach templates, which will be automatically personalized for each lead.
For each email template you use, whether they are premade or you wrote them yourself, you will get detailed statistics and reports. This way, you can figure out which templates work best.
When searching for Twitter influencers, you can sort and filter your results based on not only things such as follower count and location but also whether the profile is tagged as Blogger, Journalist, Executive, Company, and more.
There is also a Chrome extension that allows you to search for influencers and find bloggers straight from Google. You can add them to your influencer lists by clicking a few buttons and have all their information synced to your Ninja Outreach account.
Ninja Outreach also makes it easy to boost your link building campaigns. Using their extension or search tool, you can find blogs that fit your niche and which have a good SEO value.
This works for any link building campaign, whether you are focusing on guest blogging, broken link repair, or anything else.
You can then use the email outreach and CRM tools to reach out and ask bloggers for links. Ninja Outreach will already have crawled the web for contact information so you don’t have to do that work yourself.
Although Ninja Outreach has its own email sending and management tools, they also let you export your emails to more than one hundred other email service providers, including Mailchimp and Hubspot.
Ninja Outreach Pricing
Ninja Outreach has two plans: Flex and Pro.
The Flex Plan costs $389/month (or $155/month with yearly billing). You can have up to 1,000 contacts, connect one of your email accounts, and send up to 10,000 emails a month.
The Pro Plan costs $649/month (or $259/month with yearly billing). You can manage up to 4,000 contacts, add two additional team members, connect up to four of your email accounts, and send up to 15,000 emails a month.
For all other purposes, both plans are the same – you will get access to the same features with both.
Verdict
NinjaOutreach’s main strength over BuzzStream is its ease of setup. Also, overall administration is seamless. Both BuzzStream and NinjaOutreach offer free trials; however, NinjaOutreach’s starting prices are higher than that of BuzzStream.
BuzzStream’s pricing starts at just $24 per month while that of NinjaOutreach is over $100. Nevertheless, there are some features you enjoy with NinjaOutreach that BuzzStream doesn’t have, like Newsroom and Response Desk.
2. WebFluential
WebFluential is an influencer marketing software that has grown significantly over the past few years. Webfluential is a bit different from Ninja Outreach and many other influencer marketing software.
With WebFluential, all of the influencers you will find through a search on their site are opt-in influencers. This means that they have themselves signed up to be an influencer.
Yes, this means that the number of influencers you will see in your results will be fewer than what you would see with Ninja Outreach. However, it also means that you will likely get much higher conversion and response rates.
After all, all of these influencers have indicated that they want to work with business owners like you. You are not cold-approaching hundreds of leads whose contact information was scraped off the internet.
There are other perks to using a platform such as Webfluential.
For example, you will get smart contracts that you can use with the influencers you are working with. This will ensure that influencers only get paid after they have provided you with a satisfactory service.
You can even have influencers come to you! Create a brief and have influencers pitch themselves to you with their offers.
Webfluential will also match you with influencers who their AI determines to be a good fit for your business.
For each influencer, you will get detailed statistics and insights into their follower count, reach, engagement, and performance. You will also get analytics about your messages and outreach campaigns.
Webfluential Pricing
You can also join the Reseller program, which allows you to offer an influencer marketing software program to clients. The Agency Partner program allows you to offer influencer marketing services on a white-label basis.
The self-serve plan lets you use the platform by searching for influencers or submitting a brief so influencers can submit pitches to you. It costs $100/month, but you can get a seven-day free trial.
There is also a managed plan option – WebFluential will take care of everything for you, including finding and communicating with influencers. This plan has a custom price, which is typically over $2,500 per month.
Although WebFluential is a bit more expensive than other services, you will get access to only vetted influencers.
Verdict
The opt-in influencer nature of the WebFluential platform is its major advantage. BuzzStream research features allow you to automatically find leads from prospects across the web and social media.
With WebFluential, the leads aren’t prospects from across the web but accredited influencers. In other words, you’re assured that any lead you get is valuable and not one to waste your time. With a $100 starting price, WebFluential isn’t an expensive Buzzstream alternative option.
3. Pitchbox
Pitchbox is an influencer marketing and content marketing platform for brands.
You can conduct advanced searches to find the best influencers and bloggers. Just enter your desired keywords.
The search results take into account metrics such as Moz, SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Majestic rankings so that you only get shown quality publishers.
Pitchbox claims that their automated email marketing features, which allow you to reach out to all of the publishers on your list at once and send follow-ups automatically, boost response rates by 62 percent on average.
You will get detailed statistics into all of your campaigns.
Your first step is starting a campaign. There are a number of campaign types to choose from, including:
- Blogger Outreach
- Advanced Search
- Website Import
- 48 Hour Blog Search
- Contact Import
- Link Removal
After indicating what kind of niche you are working in, Pitchbox will give you a list of recommended keywords to use in your influencer search. You don’t have to select all of the recommended keywords.
Then, choose a template – all templates will be personalized through dynamic fields. You can choose one or two followup email templates as well.
Then, choose how many days after your first email you want your second email to be sent. However, a follow-up will only be sent if you did not get a response to your first email.
You can then choose your ranking filters. After you get your results, you can click on each of them and view each website yourself without ever leaving the Pitchbox interface.
Move each website you like to your special list. Once you have compiled your list, you can send your emails to all of them.
For each website, you can have emails sent to all associated email addresses.
You can view all of your emails and their replies in your Pitchbox interface. For each influencer who has responded, you can view their social media profiles and engagement right next to their reply.
There is a Pipeline report, where you can see the performance of your entire campaign and of each influencer you are working with. The Aging report makes sure that you are not missing out on aging opportunities.
Pitchbox Pricing
Pitchbox does not offer pricing information on their website. It only offers you the opportunity to sign up for a demo account and a private walkthrough.
According to TrustRadius, however, Pitchbox offers four pricing plans:
- Basic: $195/month
- Small Business: $295/month
- SEO Agency: $395/month
- Enterprise: Starting at $1500/month
This makes Pitchbox significantly more expensive than Buzzstream, which has plans starting at only $24/month.
Verdict
Unlike BuzzStream which features public pricing plans, Pitchbox’s pricing is private. You have to schedule a demo, and then contact the sales team to get a quote.
This could help ensure you don’t pay more than what you’ll need even though users suggest the custom pricing to be relatively higher then BuzzStream price.
Notably, Pitchbox has automated outreach prospecting tools which makes it superior than BuzzStream.
4. Upfluence
Upfluence calls itself the smartest influencer marketing platform. They claim to have a database of over 3 million influencer profiles from all different social platforms, including lesser-used platforms such as Twitch and TikTok.
You can search for the influencers of your choice by using over 20 different filters, including location, audience size, and more. The software will also automatically recommend influencers to you based on your niche and needs using artificial intelligence.
Once you have your search results, you can start adding influencers to lists. You can create as many lists as you want and export them via CSV.
Each influencer will have an extensive profile. You will see a brief snapshot of their most recent social media posts.
You will also see information such as how many followers they have, their average engagement rates, and more. You can easily compare two profiles against each other to make better choices.
You can even see historical engagements as well as a breakdown of their posting habits and schedule. There will be a list of their top countries and the engagement percentage of each one.
All engagement is vetted to make sure you are not wasting your time on influencers with fake followers.
You will even get a suggested price for Instagram posts and Youtube videos. These suggested prices are based on a lot of things, including their follower count and engagement rate, so you know you are offering a fair price for what you will get.
The Upfluence Chrome extension allows you to view any influencer’s statistics and add them to one of your lists when you are browsing the web. If you have lists of influencers you created manually or with another platform, you can upload them to your Upfluence account.
You can contact your entire list of influencers at once or reach out to an individual influencer. All templates will be personalized.
Another option is creating a brief that explains what your business is about and what your goals are. Influencers can then respond to your brief directly on the platform.
It’s easy to manage your influencers with Upfluence. You will get a list of all of the influencers you have contacted.
You can filter this giant list further to get smaller, more manageable lists. You can also bulk-select contacts for bulk actions, such as moving them to another list.
Syncing several campaigns with the same influencers is also possible, which helps you build long-term relationships.
You can create as many campaigns as you want. This feature is essential if you want to promote more than one product, service, or idea.
All of your campaigns and influencers can be managed from one centralized dashboard, regardless of at what stage an influencer is holding.
You can also keep track of your offers and how they fit into your budget.
Collaborating with team members is easy as well. Upfluence eliminates the need to send back-and-forth communications.
Instead, influencers can upload drafts and team members can comment on them. You have the final say in whether a post gets approved or not.
Upfluence also takes care of your payments. They deal with payments in over 200 countries and 135 currencies.
If you are planning on working with influencers around the world, this is super important.
They also take care of other technical business tasks, such as legal compliance and tax withholding.
The Analytics section will give you an overview of your entire campaign, including how many clicks you got and your engagement rate. You will also get specific statistics for each individual influencer you are working with.
You can assess your performance on different platforms and see things such as how many impressions you are getting and what your estimated ROI is.
You can set up tracking so that you can see not only all of the times when you are mentioned but also when your competitors are mentioned by any influencer. This helps you keep track of what your competitors are doing.
Upfluence also has a content marketing service. They work in English, Spanish, German, Chinese, and French.
If you opt for this service, you will get a comprehensive website and business audit. Their team will come up with a content strategy and create content for your site.
Upfluence Pricing
Upfluence does not mention pricing on their site. Instead, they ask you to fill out a form about your business so they can get back to you with a custom plan and quote.
Conversely, they have three pricing plans with no specified cost, which include:
- Growth
- Scale
- Enterprise
Note: Users are provided with access to their Chrome extension after a premium subscription.
Verdict
Side by side comparisons on Crozdesk show that Upfluence users are more satisfied than BuzzStream users. Feature-wise, BuzzStream has more options but with Upfluence, you won’t lack any important feature.
This includes access to more than 3 million influencers, integrated email outreach, competitive tracking, and analytics & reporting. Furthermore, Upfluence pricing isn’t public like BuzzStream – you only pay for what you use.
5. TapInfluence
TapInfluence works in a similar fashion to Webfluential. All influencers are opt-in influencers, which can give you a better conversion rate.
Using the search tool, you can enter a keyword and find thousands of influencers. You can filter your results based on criteria such as location and audience size.
Each influencer comes with a robust profile with their contact and personal information and engagement stats. You will even get details about their audience – their age, demographics, and even what kind of content they respond to.
You can also search through social media posts and visual images by typing in keywords.
You can add influencers to lists. There will also be premade lists based on popular searches.
You can manage your campaigns easily and integrate all of their aspects into one funnel, including content creation, review, scheduling, and more.
All of your assignments will be tracked, and you can watch in real-time as they move through stages such as open, scheduled, published, or past due.
You will also get multi-channel analytics that makes calculating engagement and ROI easy. Analytics include things such as reach, views, engagement, total media value, and more.
You will even be able to compare your own performance to benchmarks in the industry, which allows you to see how well you are doing.
You can also analyze your real ROI to see how much profit each channel is bringing you.
Tapinfluence has something called CPE, or Cost Per Engagement. This allows you to see how much bang you are getting for your buck.
As influencers complete more assignments, their CPE will constantly be updated.
This doesn’t mean that influencers can not choose their own rates. They certainly can; however, the CPE will give you an idea of whether the rate an influencer is charging is reasonable or way out of line.
You can even sort influencers by CPE. By focusing on influencers that charge less but deliver more, you can get more for your money.
TapInfluence Pricing
TapInfluence does not publish prices on their website. However, you can sign up and create an account by filling out a few details (you can also sign up via Facebook).
Verdict
If you need a BuzzStream alternative that you can use for free, forever, TapInfluence is unarguably a great option. The free plan may not be too much but it lets you connect all your social media accounts and reach out to top brands.
Why Bother With Influencer Marketing?
Before we wrap it up, it’s worth addressing why you should have an influencer marketing strategy in the first place. Following are some of the top benefits of influencer marketing:
- Tap Into Others’ Social Status: When you get an influencer to promote you, you can tap into their social status. These people have fans and followers that already trust them, and you can use that to your advantage.
- Reach New People and Improve Brand Visibility: By appearing on other social channels, you can reach new people. This helps you improve your brand visibility.
- Be Less Salesy: One of the biggest advantages of influencer marketing vs running traditional social media ads is that influencer marketing is a lot more natural and less pushy. It also helps overcome banner blindness – many people simply do not look at paid ads in their social media feeds.
- Increase Social Proof: By featuring sponsored posts that influencers have posted on your own social profiles, you can build social proof.
- Target Niche Audiences: Working with micro-influencers allows you to reach extremely niche-oriented audiences. Micro-influencers also usually charge less per post and have a more personal relationship with their fans than famous celebrities.
- Boost SEO: This benefit is often overlooked, but social mentions do play a role in SEO. The more you are linked to and mentioned on social media, the more SEO value your website has.
- Higher ROI: One of the top benefits of influencer marketing is ROI. On average, influencer marketing brings an 11x higher ROI than banner advertising.
Wrapping It Up
If you don’t yet have a social media influencer campaign, there is no longer an excuse.
By using any of the above five tools, you can easily find influencers to work with.
