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Credit: By Carlos Maya. Some rights reserved.

What is it? A tool to help monitor trending stories on a particular topic or domain.

How is it of use to journalists? BuzzSumo allows users to search for a particular topic or URL to see the most-shared stories on social media.

Sarah Marshall, social media editor EMEA at The Wall Street Journal, has previously blogged about how she uses the tool to search for social media influencers and view social analytics.

Now the platform has introduced a new feature, BuzzSumo Trending, which allows users to discover what stories are being widely shared and discussed around a particular subject area.

You can choose from a range of pre-determined topics, including news, sport, entertainment and tech or add a custom topic such as a specific domain, location or localised event. To add a custom topic, you will need to register for a free BuzzSumo account if you don't have one already.

Then click the plus button at the end of BuzzSumo's pre-determined topics and add either a custom topic or a custom domain. Here I've added two custom topics: one for "Apple Watch" and one for "Journalism.co.uk".

BuzzSumo Trending only shows popular content from over the past 24 hours or less. You can filter your results by a narrower time frame if you wish, such as trending over the past two hours.

For any search, you can sort your results by 'Most Shared' or 'Trending Now' using the button to the top right of your results.

BuzzSumo Trending
Screenshot from BuzzSumo Trending

For journalists, BuzzSumo Trending is a useful way to identify popular subjects and hot discussion points as they begin to bubble up through social media channels.

It's important to bear in mind, however, that share metrics should be considered alongside other audience analytics like page views and dwell time.

The basic features of BuzzSumo Trending are free. An advanced (presumably paid) version offering additional features, including the ability to add more than two custom topics and export or track trending stories by RSS, is available for "test drive" on request. 

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