SocialBlade: social media data on demand

Fame, sponsoring contracts and big money - this is what some YouTubers dream of. To make it easier to achieve this dream, the video platform YouTube provides a practical analytics tool to help them optimise their content and attract more subscribers. However, not everyone can master its complex interface. Many users instead resort to using tools from third-party providers. SocialBlade is one of the most popular of these providers. In the following sections, you will learn about the functions provided by this tool.

SocialBlade uses these social media websites’ public APIs (application programming interfaces) to access the data they share. As a result, this website is currently tracking more than 27 million YouTube channels, eight million Twitter profiles and seven million Twitch accounts (as of April 2019). However, that is not all it does. SocialBlade also analyses the data it collects and presents the results in a clear format so that these results can then be shared with video producers, companies and news portals. A smartphone app for iOS and Android is also available.

When the CEO of SocialBlade Jason Urgo launched his website in February 2008, it was initially only used to track data from the social networking website Digg, thus only reaching a niche audience. In an effort to create a service for all social media users, he ended up developing SocialBlade. In a blog post from February 2017, Urgo described it as a tool to cut through social media algorithms and find out how they work and grow.

Urgo, who has been using the pseudonym Urgo6667 as a Youtuber himself since 2007, originally used YouTube Analytics as well as a third-party tool which is no longer available online. In response, he redirected SocialBlade to focus on performing analytics of YouTube starting in 2010. As a result of a collaboration with Maker Studios (now one of the three largest production networks for YouTube videos), the project gained momentum in February 2011, and SocialBlade was officially registered in October 2012 as a limited liability company (LLC).

SocialBlade is currently tracking more than 50 million social media accounts from seven different platforms (as of April 2019). Seven million users visit the website every month, many of whom even visit it several times per day. In the global Alexa ranking system, it is ranked at 792 (as of December 2018). Urgo himself advertises the project which is dear to him, as the number one source for YouTube statistics outside of YouTube itself.

Since its launch, SocialBlade has presented itself as a forward-thinking company and is constantly expanding its range of products and services with new functions and services.

The website’s main job is to collect and compile YouTube data which it obtains through the public programming interface YouTube API. SocialBlade then presents this data in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand format which is available to all visitors free of charge. For example, you can find “top lists” on the website which provide an overview of the YouTube channels with the highest number of views and subscriptions for specific countries or subjects.

If you are instead looking for more detailed information about a specific channel, you can enter either its URL (for old channels) or its username (for new channels) in SocialBlade’s search bar.

If you plan to use SocialBlade often, we recommend creating your own dashboard account. This is absolutely free on the website and also gives you access to additional features. You can add up to five social media channels as favourites to your overview page (i.e. your dashboard) which allows you to constantly monitor them. Registered users also receive regular progress reports which they can have automatically sent to them by email.

Professional YouTubers and other professionals can choose from four different types of premium accounts: bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Membership costs between US$3.99 (£3 approx.) and US$99.99 (£75 approx) per month depending on the account and adds a number of features. For example, you will benefit from being able to add more favourites as well as from significantly longer analysis periods (in some cases periods going back up to 356 days).

SocialBlade’s latest innovations include “Report Cards”. You can use these to clearly display your channel’s most important key figures and save them as PDF files, which can then be shown to potential business partners, for example. Since 2014, this website has also been offering consulting services which are certified by YouTube and include video chats with experts on topics such as marketing and SEO.

SocialBlade owes its success primarily to its partnership with the multi-channel network (MCN) Maker Studios. It is thus hardly surprising that the website itself also offers a partner program.

SocialBlade works in collaboration with the Canadian digital entertainment company BroadbandTV Corp (BBTV), whose network includes the NBA as well Sony Pictures. Together they support SocialBlade YouTubers receiving a minimum of 500,000 views per month in all aspects of its creative work, from content production to marketing and digital rights management.

Partners who have successfully applied will be prominently featured in various parts of the website and will have access to exclusive resources such as Epidemic Sound’s library which contains thousands of royalty-free musical tracks to be used in the production of YouTube videos. In return, SocialBlade often keeps a portion of the revenue generated by each channel. This varies based on the individual contract.

If you use YouTube as an advertising platform or monetise your own YouTube channel , you have probably already come in contact with the YouTube Analytics tool. Technically, this tool offers all the information you need for your channel, so why should you consult SocialBlade?

The CEO Jason Urgo argues that the existence of his website is justified because it presents the available data in a more comprehensible and user-friendly way and thus provides users with even deeper insight into analytics. In addition, SocialBlade does not just provide data about the user’s own channel but about other people’s channels as well.

But are the statistics compiled by this third-party provider reliable?

When it comes to US media platforms such as Money, NBC and HuffPost, the answer is yes. In the past, these and other industry professionals have often used SocialBlade as a source such as for the estimated revenue of famous YouTubers.

However, there is a major issue in how the estimated revenue is calculated. These figures are only rough estimates based on certain CPT values which reflect the advertising cost per 1,000 clicks or views (cost per thousand). Since these costs are only known by the channel operator and YouTube itself and can range from a minimum of US$0.25 (£0.20 approx) and a maximum of US$4.00 (£3 approx), the “estimated earnings” provided on SocialBlade have large ranges with a difference of several thousand to even tens of thousands of dollars between the lowest and highest estimated revenues.

With such a large range, the analysed channel is likely to fall within it, but this estimation does not include the additional cost factors related to YouTuber activities. These factors may include the network’s share, taxes, contributions to private health, pension and unemployment insurance, production software and hardware expenses as well as any advertising revenue lost when viewers use adblockers.

For this reason, YouTube has stated on one of its official Twitter accounts that third-party apps such as SocialBlade cannot accurately reflect subscriber activities (and the resulting revenue trends). Furthermore, the video platform has a time-related advantage when it comes to its own data. On SocialBlade, the frequency with which a channel page is updated depends largely on how much traffic it generates. The data is usually updated once per day. However, if there is not much user interest, this may only be done in a piecemeal fashion.

In response to YouTube's tweet, SocialBlade posted its own statement: "We don't make up data. We get it from the YouTube API. We rely on it for accuracy" (@SocialBlade, 19 December 2016). As the website’s FAQ further explains, the tool is not supposed to be a replacement for YouTube Analytics anyway. It is intended as an additional resource with which users can quickly view user-friendly information about other people’s channels as well as their own.

In conclusion, the data on SocialBlade to some extent does allow you to draw conclusions about the performance of specific social media channels, recognise trends and improve your content based on this information. If you are a professional looking for a skilled influencer, you can also make use of the analytics tool to help you separate the real subscriber magnets from those who buy followers.