SocialBlade: social media data on demand

If you use YouTube as an advertising platform or monetize 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 and a maximum of US$4.00, 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 analyzed 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, recognize 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.