A lot of social media tools have been invented and a significant amount of them faded away quickly; be it due to their limited functionalities or their similarity to another in the market, there wasn’t possibly any way they could have survived in this ever changing world of social. But there was one tool that stood out then and continues to pioneer the field of social media tools – Sprout Social. We love Sprout Social. Here’s why.
Sprout Social is to date, the biggest name when it comes to social media tools and it doesn’t come across as a surprise when Andrew Caravella, VP of Marketing, Sprout Social, told us about the thought process behind it – “The thought process behind Sprout was really about filling an emerging gap in the market. There is a huge need to provide tools that better connect and manage the social media relationships between brands and consumers. Especially in the B2B market, as businesses take to the social networks for marketing, customer service, communications and more – they need tools built for professional use.”
With social media becoming synonymous with the establishment of a brand’s presence, digital marketers are forever doing the social dance to please their audience. “Social media is synonymous with a brand’s complete presence – online, offline or otherwise. There is not a successful brand in the world that does not engage and care for their audiences using social media in some capacity. It’s not a nicety, it’s a necessity”, says Caravella.
The agenda behind giving a ‘voice’ to a brand\’s online presence is to provide an insight into the company philosophy, offer direct feedback platforms to consumers and engage them in such a way that it results in sales and keeps them hooked on to for more.
Smaller brands are forever having a tough time establishing themselves in the digital marketing world and aimlessly signing up for ad campaigns does no good. But with the ever changing marketing trends, how does one flex their strategy to be able to keep it in sync with their business marketing strategy offline?
“Focus on social engagement rather than audience recruitment. When companies initially set up social profiles, a gut instinct may be to recruit as many fans and followers as possible. It’s a classic quantity versus quality game and, while having a robust base of followers is important, it is imperative to provide those users with engaging content to keep them interested and coming back for more. Small businesses are better suited to nurture quality relationships with, say, one thousand fans than to recruit one million and never talk to them again. Develop a content and engagement strategy that includes information about your brand, upcoming promotions, relevant links and interactive questions to naturally build an engaged audience”, advises Caravella, who has been in the business long enough to know exactly what it takes to be a good marketer.
“Simply put, Sprout makes marketers’ lives easier. We offer key tools to successfully manage social engagement, publishing and analytics. Whether you’re a singular marketer working alone or handling social with a team of hundreds across your organization, our extensive collaboration and workflow features make social media easy to manage”, states Caravella, addressing all those intrigued by the popularity of Sprout Social and what it has to offer.
The tool incurs huge amount of traction from the world over as it serves as a one stop shop for the marketers. Its availability on all mobile devices, makes it a popular choice amongst those businesses managing social media on the go.
As per Caravella, “People are flocking to Sprout for a variety of reasons, because at its core, Sprout facilitates the dialogue between brands and their customers. We’re building superior software that goes out of the way and allows brands to easily engage with their customers on social media.”
With the changing digital marketing trends, CRM has become a vital part of every business’s strategy. “We think so too! From the beginning, Sprout was built on the idea that brands should engage on social – not just broadcast promotional messages. Therefore, our platform is built around the concept of social customer care and makes it easy for brands to discover, respond to and interact with the social conversations and customers that matter most. Plus, our beautiful design makes the experience seamless and enjoyable – no matter where you are”, says Caravella.
CRM is one of the highlight features of Sprout Social that makes focusing on catering to your customer needs a cakewalk, making it the top most choice amongst smart marketers.
To top it all, Sprout seems to be constantly working on bettering its interface and adding features to make marketing simpler – no matter what’s trending in the digital marketing world. “Our product teams are always focused on enhancing current capabilities, finding new ways to please our customer and, really, make their social management easier. Quite a few things in the works – but nothing we can share publicly yet!” confirms Caravella; not letting out what’s in store for future yet putting across its plan to stay on top in its field clearly.
If the alluring news has nudged you to give Sprout Social a ‘try’, the free trial with each of their plans is something you shouldn’t be missing.
Sprout Social’s impressive cliental is a proof of its awesome-ness in terms of the functionalities it offers and why it is still the top most social media tool.
Sprout’s Impressive Clientele.
Here is a quick walkthrough the tool to help you set up your business on this platform.
Creating an Account:
Signing up on this tool is extremely hassle free and takes just about a few minutes. It suffices with just a few details and saves you from having to fill in your bio data.
Connecting with Twitter:
After you sign up with the tool, the next step is to connect your Twitter account to Sprout to be able to obtain analytics in terms of engagement, conversation, etc. After you sign in with your Twitter account, the tool asks you for an authorization to access all your information.
Starting on Sprout:
Once you have logged in with your Twitter account, Sprout asks you to enter a “business name” – the name which will represent your identity in the social media community using Sprout. After the base is set up, the tool offers a few tips on how you could use it better to enhance your business on social media. The more profiles you integrate with your account, the better analytics you obtain.
The Dashboard.
Sprout’s dashboard serves navigation functionalities around seven tabs: Home, Messages, Tasks, Feeds, Publishing, Discovery and Reports.
- The Home tab navigates you to your profile’s home page where you can view a quick summary of all your social accounts – trends, statistics, audience demographics, tasks, messages, etc.
- The Messages tab allows you to use your business’s keywords to keep a tab on the number of comments, mentions, discussions and other worthwhile activities happening around your business on your social profiles. It brings all the notifications in one place. All you need to do is toggle accounts to view them separately.
Smart Inbox – Messages Tab.
- The Tasks tab lets you keep track of all the tasks lined up to execute your business strategy on social platforms. The highlight of this feature is the fact that you can also keep a tab on the tasks assigned to your team mates to ensure they are executed efficiently.
- The Feeds tab lets you view all your social profile news feed and keeps updating on a real time basis to help you keep abreast with the conversations taking place in your circles.
- The Publishing tab allows you to send out updates on your social profiles. The highlight of this feature is that like on any social platform today, it allows you to schedule them according to your strategy.
- The Discovery tab shows you who is added to your circles or wants to be a part of your circle; so that you can encourage further interactions. This feature also offers a ‘smart search’ option that lets you track people you feel are relevant to your business on all social media platforms.
The Discovery Tab.
- The Reports tab is a pleasure for all those who firmly believe statistics and analytics can give away the success or failure of a social media strategy. Sprout gives you exact number for all the social profiles you integrate it with. Be it Facebook, Twitter or Google+, Sprout lets you know exactly how much of an impact your social media strategy has resulted in.
The Reports Tab.
Sprout Social comes with highlight features that are unmatched in the industry till date. Covering all aspects of social media marketing, it sure is going to power up your business’s social profiles! Have you used Sprout for your social media marketing strategies? Share your experience with us.
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