What is Sprout Social

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What is Sprout Social?

Sprout Social is a social media management platform that allows users to “build and grow stronger relationships on social.” The company recently went public and raised nearly $150 million with the IPO. Their goal is to allow businesses of all sizes to cultivate authentic connections with their customers.

According to Hubspot, 59 percent of Americans believe that it is easier to get their issues resolved through social media and around 3.03 billion people are on social media. It is crucial to make social media management a priority for brands. Sprout Social makes it much easier to manage several social media platforms in one place and can be a great solution for many brand social media managers.

Sprout Social dashboard. Screen captured with CloudApp.

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How Much Does Sprout Social Cost?

After a 30-day free trial, you can choose one of three different plans:

Standard Plan

The Standard plan is a great option for social media managers of small- or medium-sized companies. With the ability to manage up to five different social profiles in one place, this is a huge time-saver for those who have too much on their plates. Easily draft, schedule, and prioritize posts for each social media platform and then let Sprout Social take care of the rest! According to Sprout Social, the following features are included in the Standard plan:

• $99 per user per month
• 5 social profiles
• All-in-one social inbox
• Ability to publish, schedule, draft, and queue posts
• A social content calendar
• Review management
• Profiles, keywords, and locations monitoring
• Tasking and social CRM tools
• Group, profile, and post-level reporting
• Paid promotion tools to boost Facebook posts
• iOS and Android mobile apps

Professional Plan

The Professional plan is ideal for social media managers that need to manage 5-10 social profiles. Though the Standard plan is sufficient for smaller businesses, larger ones will find the benefit of having competitive reports, scheduling during optimal times, trend analysis for Twitter, and more. If these benefits are worth the added cost, the Professional plan may be for you.

• $149 per user per month
• 10 social profiles
• Everything in Standard, plus
• Competitive reports for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
• Incoming and outgoing message content tagging
• Custom workflows for multiple approvers and steps
• Scheduling for optimal send times
• Response rate and time analysis reports
• Trend analysis for Twitter keywords and hashtags
• Paid social reporting for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• Helpdesk integration

Advanced Plan

At $249 dollars per month per user, the most expensive plan of the three Sprout Social plans comes with everything that the Professional plan does in addition to chatbots, custom URL tracking, Twitter surveys, and more. If you are working for a large company or simply need the extra features as a social media manager of a smaller company, this plan may be for you.

• $249 per user per month
• 10 social profiles
• Everything in Professional, plus
• Message spike alerts for increased message activity
• Digital asset and content library
• Chatbots with automation tools
• Saved and suggested replies
• Inbox rule builder for automated actions
• Custom URL tracking
• Twitter surveys to define CSAT or NPS

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Monitor & Engage with a Single Inbox

Between Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more, it can be exhausting to keep up with direct messages. Sprout Social offers the ability to manage and engage with all messages in a single place. You can also keep track of comments, reviews, tags, and more.

The number of notifications that come in from each social media platform can be overwhelming. Sprout Social provides a simple way to track them all in one place. And with the Saved Replies feature, engaging with users is easier than ever.

Monitor social activity with Sprout Social. Screen recorded with CloudApp.

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Plan & Publish Social Content in One Place

Even the best content calendar is useless without a dedicated publishing schedule. Sprout Social offers a simple and easy-to-use platform that allows you to schedule content in advance so you can focus on creation instead of logistics. You can also edit social images directly from the platform and share posts over multiple platforms with a single click.

At CloudApp, we use Sprout Social to schedule out posts that feature our blog posts, How to Use the Internet videos, product announcements, tutorial videos, and more. The platform frees up our time to work on content ideation and creation. It also decreases the stress of worrying about publishing content every day. We simply schedule the drafts and they are automatically published on the desired day and time.

Schedule social posts with Sprout Social. Screen recorded with CloudApp.

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Report & Analyze Using Social Data and Analytics

Without analyzing data, it is impossible to know the impact that your social media efforts are having on the brand. It can also be difficult to figure out where to expand your audience and how to gain more followers. Sprout Social pulls competitor reports, cross-network reports, and more to help you make the most of your social media marketing efforts.

Sprout Social offers several reports to analyze valuable data. Screen recorded with CloudApp.

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Share & Amplify with Bambu by Sprout Social

According to Sprout Social, brand messages get re-shared 24 times more often when an employee shares it than when the brand itself posts. The Bambu platform makes it simple for employees to amplify brand content on their personal social media accounts. In addition to increasing brand visibility, you are more likely to increase the quality of leads and conversions from social.

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Is Sprout Social Worth It?

Many reviews of Sprout Social do list the price as a con, but overall, users feel that the features such as automated publishing, brand tracking, and reporting/analytics are worth the cost. If you do social media management frequently or for more than one brand, it is worth looking into.

Whether you are in charge of social media for a large corporation or a small business, Sprout Social is a valuable tool to keep all of your social media management in one platform. At CloudApp, we’re all about productivity and finding ways to save time. Sprout Social is one of many apps that can help boost productivity and improve the bottom line.