Connor Black
10/10
(Expert Score)
Product is rated as #1 in category Video Marketing
TubeBuddy will guide you through YouTube's Best Pratices and ensure your videos are set up for success.
PROS:
- Tubebuddy offers a plethora of tools
- Audio/video material for creators
- Excellent customer support
- Enlightening documentation
CONS:
- Inconsistencies with tags and keywords might occur
Table of Contents
Introduction to Tubebuddy: On the Other Side of the Tube
I find binging on YouTube videos, relaxing, and stimulating. A teenager struggling to create something original, an experienced technician who goes through the effort of making a tutorial video to show how to get something done or just another guy making a YTP (YouTubePoop) to ridicule something. The energy that content creators put in their videos is always fascinating, regardless of whether it is useful or even interesting to me. It makes me often wonder: “what separates a spectator from a content creator? Is it so hard to jump on the other side of the tube and start your own channel?”. Not at all, if you start with the right ally. TubeBuddy is a free browser extension that helps you run a channel with ease. Whether you are starting off on your own or you are managing a big company social image, you’ll have plenty of ways to boost your productivity with this tool. In this Tubebuddy review, I will try to show how this tool can improve your work, and I will also give a comparative opinion over its functionalities to help you find one of the best alternative in case you don’t like to use Tubebuddy.What Is a YouTube Channel Manager and Why Should You Care?
A YouTube Channel Manager is a tool that can help you with the so-called YouTube SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Software tools like Tubebuddy are designed to help discover the right elements to add in your YouTube videos and what topics to covert to inevitably boost the profitability of a channel. This means that by using a YouTube Channel Manager you will, as a consequence, spend less time working at your YouTube channel by automating repetitive tasks and by viewing the most useful analytics on your content. TubeBuddy offers you with quick ways to communicate with your fans, region-based search statistics, a COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act) scanner, and many other tools to better reach your target audience. As you might have guessed already, reducing cost has nothing to do with increasing the revenues. YouTube Channels managers are not money-making machines, and the success of your channel still depends mostly on whether you are able to come up with engaging content or not. In this sense, TubeBuddy provides freebies and other tools to make your videos on YouTube more engaging. Reducing your cost and boosting the revenue is critical for enterprises and experienced independent creators, but what if you are just starting without a defined goal? In that case, exploring your YouTube dashboard, if you use TubeBuddy will still enormously help you. You will get to know a lot of what is “behind the scene” of a YouTube channel, thanks to the documentation and support that comes with this very accessible tool.Tubebuddy: A Free Tool Helping Content Creators
“Being a YouTuber is tough. We want to build tools to make it easier. Our Mission is to make you and the rest of the YouTube Community a happier and more productive bunch.” TubeBuddy clearly states the objective on its homepage. The team behind Tubebuddy is formed by experienced people that worked more than ten years on tools for content creators of videos and YouTube. The key performance indicator of the TubeBuddy group is customer satisfaction. The product itself is a plugin that you can add for free to Chrome, Safari, and Firefox-based browser (Chromium-based browser work as well). Tons of feature comes with the Tubebuddy free plan; however, you can add even more for your videos by upgrading up to Pro, Star, and Legend subscription. In the following image, you can see the base pricing plans:
Tubebuddy: So Many Features for YouTube Creators, So Little Lifetime
After the quick and easy installation process, you just need to sign in your YouTube account and link one TubeBuddy to it. After you set up your account, the tool will be immediately integrated, and you will be able to access it from anywhere in YouTube by using the icon that appears in the top right or by interacting with the info sidebars that will appear in YouTube like the one visible in the image below:
Tubebuddy’s Productivity Features
TubeBuddy can improve your workflow in terms of:- Videos Preplan Functionalities for YouTube: Upload Checklist, Advanced video Embed, Card Templates, Schedule Publish, Publish to Facebook are a few functions that allow you to customize the way your YouTube videos are presented inside and outside YouTube. You can control all the functions of the video presentation card inside YouTube and outside (on Facebook). You can plan your video schedule and you will receive actual tips on how to make a schedule plan. Finally, the Default Upload Profiles you can make multiple default descriptions and tags (YouTube only allows you to use one!)
- YouTube Crowd Control: Notification Commenting, COPPA Center, Comment Filters and Comment Spotlight are all functions that help you stay closer and be more responsive with your fans, you can create comment templates and with the Legend plan you will be even able to automatically spot the best commentators in your videos on YouTube (like patrons and other key supporters).
- Making YouTube Video Content Unique: Emoji Picker, Thumbnail Generator Playlist Actions are tools that allow you to make your videos unique in the eye of the viewer. You can also use the Sunset Video functions to have even more control over who can view your content. 100 keyword tools
Tubebuddy’s Bulk Processing Feature
The videos bulk function allows you to bulk edit videos: Cards, End Screens, Videos Social Profile Info, YouTube Thumbnails, Update Playlist. You can delete or copy, find replace and update all these elements by using these functions. You will also be able to bulk check Demonetized Videos, to get the most profit out of your channel without having to check each video one by one.Tubebuddy’s Video SEO Features
TubeBuddy provides you also with statistical tools in terms of:- Audience Targeting: Best Practice Audit and Auto Translator can help you make your videos more targeted for the audience and people you are trying to reach regardless of the content you create; you can also make use of Video A/B Test functionalities to improve video thumbnails, video info, and Video Titles, video tags, of your videos.
- Keeping an eye on trends: Keywords Explorer, Search Explorer, SEO Studio. These features need no introduction and if you are trying to get a hold on some video and people trends.
- Tag management: Suggested Tags, Tags Lists, Tags Sorter, Tags Translator, Tags, Tags, Tags. Whatever your need is, TubeBuddy can help you customize your tags for it.
Tubebuddy’s Promotion Features
Promoting merchandise, staying close to your YouTube subscribers are functions that only advanced channels may use; regardless of this, TubeBuddy provides quick access to some tools like the “Pick a Winner”, which allows you to create a contest among commenters, for example, and randomly select a winner. A fun tool that even basic channels can use to create engagement among the subscribers on YouTube. Another worthy mention is the Vid2Vid Promotion that allows you to promote one of your videos in all the others.Tubebuddy’s Data Research Features
These are the functionalities that allow you to have your ears on the ground in terms of:- Tubebuddy’sCompetition Control Feature: Competitor Score Card and Competitor Upload Alert let you know how the market around you is developing
- Data Backup and Overview: Channel Access, Channel Backup, Export Comments, Comment Word Cloud are all useful functions to help you save most of the useful data that your channel might need in the future to develop. Also, Health Report gives you quick analytics over “what is working and what is not” on your channel.
- Tubebuddy’s Channel and Brand Control Feature: Demonetization Audit, Real-Time Sub Counts, Retention Analyzer, Social Monitor and Videolitics are all tools that will let you have a deeper understanding of how your channel and your brands are developing. As well, as taking more care of the people in your audience and their comments. This is directly related to getting more views and subscribers.
- TuberTools Feature: one of the best service high-quality graphics and video effects
- YoutubeStock: professional 4K no-copyright motion graphics and sounds
- Audiohero: 250,000 premium royalty-free music tracks and sound effects
My Honest Take on Tubebuddy’s Functionalities
When I first approached TubeBuddy I had no knowledge of all the functions offered and yet it felt quite natural to come to know about all of them. I was working with a very small channel (only a handful of video) to test the features and I never encountered a problem or a bug. I cannot vouch for bigger channels, although I did research online and found out that working with bulk videos gave problems to some users. I wouldn’t consider this a downside as I had no direct experience over it and would be inappropriate to comment over it. Also, given the fact that bulk actions are undoubtedly the most complex, I would have been surprised to not hear about any problem over completing them. What should be noticed on this topic is the fact that TubeBuddy has a customer support page complete of a phone number, ticketing system, and quick solutions. Now, here comes the feature I most appreciated so far: TubeBuddy has its own official forum and offers the epitome of documentation on its website. They list all the functions that the tool offers with a crystal-clear overview, tutorials (often with video), tips and a list of the price-plan including it (or not). The effort put into turning a product so varied and technical so much accessible and familiar makes TubeBuddy’s team desire for a greater YouTube community almost tangible. I myself, have come to learn a lot about YouTube and how it works just by going through the main page’s feature list and I suggest you do the same if you have any interest in growing your YouTube channel.What Others Say About Tubebuddy
If you feel like my opinion so far has been overenthusiastic, you can check what other people say about it on Google Play, where the product has a 4.1-star reputation earned through more than 5’000 reviews. I decided to make an extra effort and look into the worst reviews. The bugs that seemed to be more frequent in the worst reviews (1/2 stars) were related to crashes at the first login and bugs with the comment-related functions. Both errors are claimed to be fixed but crashes at login seemed to be the most resilient; nonetheless, some of the reviews were addressed by the customer support with some solutions in the review section itself. After scouting other internet forums and I can assert that the product is popular and well regarded. Bad experiences are in fact a minority with this product and should you experience any problem while using this app, I suggest you make use of the state of the art support they offer.
Tubebuddy Alternatives
As shown, TubeBuddy offers a plethora of features, which is not necessarily good for you; you might want something more specific for your needs so, just in case, here a couple of suggestions for you. If you are mainly about SEO (i.e., optimizing video titles, choosing tags) and raw data, Tubics might be a better option. Surely TubeBuddy offers you a very broad range of tools to gather relevant data but if your revenue is not dependent on the engagement as much as the mere traffic, inconsistencies (suggested value of a keywords/tag that does not reflect reality) might be much more impactful for you (as a business owner or channel manager). In this case, my suggestion would be looking after a tool that is exclusively about keywords and tags, such as Tubics. Note that there is not a free plan for it, but the annual billing gives you a 20% discount over the 139$ for the business premium plan and if you are a big enterprise you can even receive custom billing. In my opinion, a tool that is built around keywords and tags consistencies will help you focus on a specific aspect of your YouTube channel and get more consistent results out of it. The same concept applies to Influenex. If you are all about engagement and personal contact but need a tool that lets you perform bulk action and analytics, Influenex will prove a great alternative. On the Influenex webpage, you can find a few free features that can help you understand what you need to create a compelling brand and develop a winning communication formula. The Pro account costs 69$ a month while the enterprise costs 100$ a month. You can use a free version (with limitations) too; considered that this tool is much more oriented on the social side than the numeric side, it might be a good idea to familiarize yourself with it first to understand how it can actually help you boost the channel value. Finally, if you are looking for something very broad, like TubeBuddy, but not quite like to use TubeBuddy, VidIQ might be your solution; it comes with a free version, but the complete plan costs 125$ monthly. Aside from the different interfaces, which are designed to display more info at the same time, the feature that might be more valuable is the fact that you get a monthly coaching call. You don’t get, however, an app for Android or browser but for Chrome extension, or the extensive customer support. All in all, a similar product with a different interface that, in my opinion, is a better fit for a more independent and experienced creator or people that are simply looking for a different Interface Design.The Verdict: Should You Use Tubebuddy?
At this point, you might feel like I ignored the elephant in the room, the most pressing question everyone wants to be answered: does TubeBuddy actually help you increase YouTube revenues? It does. Here is my unbiased opinion: in a few years you might outgrow TubeBuddy as it might not stand proof of time (e.g., YouTube changing monetization policies) and it does show some inconsistency at times (e.g., tag search showing weird ratings); however Tubebuddy’s automation features undeniably save you time (equals money) and help you keep under check all there is to check in your channel. Also, and most importantly, Tubebuddy will hold your hand all the way on the path that takes your channel towards its full potential, providing you with a robust methodology and useful insight at every step, backed by one of the best and easy to use technology in its field. All this comes at a reasonable price-tag with a free version that offers more than essential features and customer support that aims towards more than just a good user experience. If you love YouTube as much as I do, you should definitely make friends with TubeBuddy.Specification: Tubebuddy
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Photos: Tubebuddy
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