Expion: a Promising Experience
April 03, 2014

Expion: a Promising Experience

Andrea Dobek | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Sysomos Expian (legacy)

Overall Satisfaction with Sysomos Expion

Expion is a tool our company (Schnucks Markets) uses to make monitoring local store Facebook pages easier. Each Facebook Administrator has a login to access the Publishing Calendar for their location, and they can consult data collected by the dashboard, such as fan interaction with their page and/or specific posts; they can view posts from other stores to learn what their fans like or dislike; they can also reply to public comments or private messages sent by Facebook users.
  • Scheduling posts is incredibly easy, especially with the week-at-a-glance calendar. Simply click on a time on the calendar to create a post for the future; from there you can attach any media you wish, add the message text, etc. A live preview on the right side of the page shows you exactly how your post will appear on Facebook.
  • The Quick Post option works much the same way, and is especially useful if you’re using their mobile app. You have all the same options available to you as with the publishing calendar.
  • If you want to see how your fans are reacting to your page, you can do so with a click on the “Fan Conversations” tab on the Dashboard. From there, you can see a timeline of all fan comments, beginning with the newest first. This is conveniently separate from posts made to your page by you or ones that were made company-wide.
  • Unfortunately, one of the biggest complaints I have is in connection with the management of media. (Note: I have not had trouble with photos when using Quick Post or the calendar.) If I wish to change the cover photo for my page, I must email the photo to a colleague of mine at corporate, and they change it for me at headquarters. When I first began using Expion around 9 months ago, the uploading of photos to the media albums (for later use, or company-wide sharing) was completely non-functional. This HAS been improved, however.
  • Another complaint I have, that I would love to see addressed, is the overwhelming depth of information regarding analysis of page statistics. This is a double-edged sword, as the wealth of information provided by Expion is astounding. But one thing the dashboard lacks is graphs. I would love to see a graph showing the growth of my likes, rather than crunch a bunch of numbers to compare. It is also somewhat difficult to know the difference between sets of numbers, just by looking at them. This is one area where I feel creating/managing a page strictly through Facebook would be preferable, as Facebook’s dashboard is more intuitive and has graphs in addition to the numbers.
  • Something I noticed while scrolling through fan comments to my page was private messages are not separated clearly enough. The envelope icon, signifying a private message to me as the administrator, is easily missed amid the others; I was nearly two weeks late in replying to a customer request about a product.
  • Replying to fan comments and/or private messages isn’t as smooth as it could be. Clicking the Expion logo on the right side of the page (when looking at a table of comments/messages) brings up several options: Assign Task, Reply, Like (for fan comments) and [Mark as] Read. Unfortunately, these don’t always work properly, as there are several messages I know I have read, but their status still reads “Unread”.
  • Over the course of nine months, my page’s Likes have increased by nearly 1000%. Those numbers don’t lie.
  • Our fans are able to stay in the loop with us, even if they don’t shop every day. Paired with our company’s main Facebook page, fans and customers still feel connected, and don’t miss out on great deals.
  • As the use of social media continues to increase, being able to offer our customers another way to reach us is invaluable, as it reinforces the “one-on-one” feeling of being connected to their store, in their community.
  • Dropbox,Evernote,Moodle,Blackboard
Expion is the software my company chose, I had no input in its selection.

The programs I chose (Dropbox, Evernote, Moodle and Blackboard) are not necessarily similar in their purpose, but they are similar in their UI. Dropbox and Evernote have incredibly clean, minimalistic UIs, that are easy and intuitive to use. I would love to see Expion emulate their setup. Moodle and Blackboard are a little closer to Expion in their design; organized, yes, but not always smooth in its operation.
I love Expion for its Publishing Calendar. I can log in, upload a photo and schedule a post very quickly. However, I cannot give the software a complete 10 out of 10 because of its issues with analytics. The incorporation of graphs and tools to compare numbers would increase its utility greatly. Until then, I must say Facebook’s own tools for managing a page are superior in that area. If you are looking to use such software, be sure you or whomever will be its primary user are comfortable with lots of numbers!

Using Sysomos Expion

Again, this choice will ultimately be made by my company, not by me.

If I was in charge of the software selection, I would honestly be hesitant to renew my contract/license, only because I know other software (Facebook's own dashboard, as I have mentioned) performs the same functions, but better. However, Expion is continually improving, so this must be kept in mind as well.