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https://dudodiprj2sv7.cloudfront.net/product-logos/Sh/i0/UB2ZWQ2XJ8XW.PNGSolid entry-level product for social media managementSprout Social is being used by one person within our organization's Communications department. I implemented Sprout hoping to streamline our social media efforts and manage all of our organization's social media platforms from one place. I currently have two Facebook accounts, one Twitter account, one Instagram account, one LinkedIn company profile, and a Google Analytics account connected to Sprout.,The social listening capabilities do a great job of providing me with information I need from our target audiences. Customer service is readily available, thorough, and considerate. When I call them with questions, I’ve gotten live people EVERY time, which is rare in the social media realm. The option to shorten links and add photos directly in tweet drafts has helped not only workflow, but it also helps maintain a seamless aesthetic on our Twitter profile. The ability to export calendars into PDFs and send them to campus partners has made workflow for campaigns so much better. I no longer have giant spreadsheets full of posts to send off to other departments for approval. The dashboard is simple and easy to navigate.,Sprout calculates impressions and engagements differently than Facebook and Twitter do natively, so I’m unable to rely solely on the reports pulled from the platform. Sprout’s Instagram integration didn’t suit our needs. Our audiences respond best to posts in real time, so there isn’t opportunity to schedule Instagram posts in advance. With recent privacy changes, I’m not able to like or comment on Instagram posts from Sprout either, so I’ve moved back to using Instagram natively. The integration with LinkedIn company pages is weak; links don’t format correctly, so it’s easier to post natively. Approvals and task assignments aren’t available with the entry-level subscription, and the cost of upgrading is similar to what I could get for a more robust tool like Falcon.,8,1,The single dashboard and scheduling tools have saved me around 5-8 hours per week that were previously spent juggling between browsers.,TweetDeck, Hootsuite Free and Falcon.io,Adobe Photoshop, Trello, Google Analytics, TweetDeck, Facebook for Business, BufferGet social ROI with SproutSprout Social was an amazing agency partner for us as we grew over the past five years. It allowed us to navigate multiple channels and multiple client accounts with ease. The overall ease of use and UX was great and most features worked flawlessly. As an agency, you are tasked with managing a lot of moving parts for client campaigns and having reporting, publishing, engagement, and tasks consolidated to a single view was very helpful in our agency workflow and processes.,Scheduling content Research and overall visibility of a social community across channels Reporting Engagement,Instagram Live and story-based content Additional social channels,9,3,A sellable resource to increase billings A technology tool that improved reporting Increased our bandwidth and overall efficiency.,Hootsuite Free,Canva, Adobe Illustrator CC, Facebook for BusinessA nice all-in-one social media management toolSprout Social is a robust community management and social media management tool with all-in-one capabilities. It has helped us stay organized and visualize our content calendar in one place.,Social media aggregation. Every use case across the team is aggregated into one platform across channels. Listening, engaging, community management. Publishing tools. The publish calendar helps us to see what our content calendar looks like across all of our channels. Letting us see what conflicts (if anything). Social listening. A nice sweet set of tools to get a full picture of the conversation around our brand.,Sentiment analysis could improve. In my experience, it's about 60% accurate and doesn't account for subtleties of sarcasm or have machine learning AI. The user interface could be more user-friendly. Sort of intangible feedback, but I found navigation to be tough at first.,9,3,Community management software allows us to optimize resources respond to our customers more efficiently The ability to centralize social activities improves efficiency by consolidating platforms and saving time for employees.,Falcon.io and BufferA great solution for quick, simple social tasksSprout Social is being used by both internal teams and clients for social listening and social insights development.,The platform is very easy to use, especially reporting and scheduling functions. UX/UI is user-friendly,No social listening and analytics are fairly basic relative to other strong competitors Pricing isn't ideal for small, growing teams Mobile app could be heavily improved,6,100,Great as a quick solution but may not be powerful enough for more extensive engagements.Sprout Social - Good basic analytics on a budget.Sprout Social is used to track key social media metrics, monitor social media campaigns, track social media engagement, and provide social media reports to key stakeholders including supervisors, directors, and other executives. Additionally, we used Sprout Social as a way to schedule content and help create a content calendar we could follow.,Scheduling content Aggregating analytics from various social media platforms One-click reporting,Fairly basic interface Analytics are surface level No social listening,6,3,Monitor and increase engagement on owned social channels Easily report on social media activities to higher ups minimal cost so not a huge investment,Hootsuite Pro, Cision PR Software, Radian6 and Crimson Hexagon ForSight,Cision PR Software, Radian6, Crimson Hexagon ForSight
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Sprout Social
249 Ratings
Score 8.0 out of 101
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Sprout Social Reviews

Sprout Social
249 Ratings
Score 8.0 out of 101
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June 04, 2018

Sprout Social Review: "Solid entry-level product for social media management"

Adrienne Hardin
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Sprout Social is being used by one person within our organization's Communications department. I implemented Sprout hoping to streamline our social media efforts and manage all of our organization's social media platforms from one place. I currently have two Facebook accounts, one Twitter account, one Instagram account, one LinkedIn company profile, and a Google Analytics account connected to Sprout.
  • The social listening capabilities do a great job of providing me with information I need from our target audiences.
  • Customer service is readily available, thorough, and considerate. When I call them with questions, I’ve gotten live people EVERY time, which is rare in the social media realm.
  • The option to shorten links and add photos directly in tweet drafts has helped not only workflow, but it also helps maintain a seamless aesthetic on our Twitter profile.
  • The ability to export calendars into PDFs and send them to campus partners has made workflow for campaigns so much better. I no longer have giant spreadsheets full of posts to send off to other departments for approval.
  • The dashboard is simple and easy to navigate.
  • Sprout calculates impressions and engagements differently than Facebook and Twitter do natively, so I’m unable to rely solely on the reports pulled from the platform.
  • Sprout’s Instagram integration didn’t suit our needs. Our audiences respond best to posts in real time, so there isn’t opportunity to schedule Instagram posts in advance. With recent privacy changes, I’m not able to like or comment on Instagram posts from Sprout either, so I’ve moved back to using Instagram natively.
  • The integration with LinkedIn company pages is weak; links don’t format correctly, so it’s easier to post natively.
  • Approvals and task assignments aren’t available with the entry-level subscription, and the cost of upgrading is similar to what I could get for a more robust tool like Falcon.
I would wholeheartedly recommend Sprout for basic social media management. Twitter scheduling, social listening capabilities, and being able to export calendars of scheduled posts are all features that have saved me time and allowed me to focus more on strategic efforts. But, if you depend on accurate data reporting, or are looking for something that integrates well with the rest of a team's workflow, Sprout (at least at the premium level) probably isn't the best choice.
Read Adrienne Hardin's full review
August 07, 2018

Sprout Social Review: "Get social ROI with Sprout"

Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Sprout Social was an amazing agency partner for us as we grew over the past five years. It allowed us to navigate multiple channels and multiple client accounts with ease. The overall ease of use and UX was great and most features worked flawlessly. As an agency, you are tasked with managing a lot of moving parts for client campaigns and having reporting, publishing, engagement, and tasks consolidated to a single view was very helpful in our agency workflow and processes.
  • Scheduling content
  • Research and overall visibility of a social community across channels
  • Reporting
  • Engagement
  • Instagram
  • Live and story-based content
  • Additional social channels
If you are an agency or run a large social team, Sprout Social is perfect. For a single man shop, it is too robust and expensive to turn an ROI unless you are a social media die-hard. I would also recommend this to any organization that is working with an agency to run social. You can keep your hand on the pulse, assign tasks and keep the entire engagement in an easy to manage interface.
Read this authenticated review
August 20, 2018

Sprout Social Review: "A nice all-in-one social media management tool"

Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Sprout Social is a robust community management and social media management tool with all-in-one capabilities. It has helped us stay organized and visualize our content calendar in one place.
  • Social media aggregation. Every use case across the team is aggregated into one platform across channels. Listening, engaging, community management.
  • Publishing tools. The publish calendar helps us to see what our content calendar looks like across all of our channels. Letting us see what conflicts (if anything).
  • Social listening. A nice sweet set of tools to get a full picture of the conversation around our brand.
  • Sentiment analysis could improve. In my experience, it's about 60% accurate and doesn't account for subtleties of sarcasm or have machine learning AI.
  • The user interface could be more user-friendly. Sort of intangible feedback, but I found navigation to be tough at first.
For a small social team that wants to consolidate content planning, community management, and social listening, Sprout is perfect.
Read this authenticated review
May 16, 2018

Sprout Social Review: "A great solution for quick, simple social tasks"

Verified User
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Sprout Social is being used by both internal teams and clients for social listening and social insights development.
  • The platform is very easy to use, especially reporting and scheduling functions.
  • UX/UI is user-friendly
  • No social listening and analytics are fairly basic relative to other strong competitors
  • Pricing isn't ideal for small, growing teams
  • Mobile app could be heavily improved
Sprout Social is an incredible free tool with limitations. If you're looking to have a more powerful social management platform, there are definitely better alternatives. For quick, simple engagements, Sprout Social is probably most ideal.
Read this authenticated review
January 22, 2018

Review: "Sprout Social - Good basic analytics on a budget."

Jimmy Mack
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Sprout Social is used to track key social media metrics, monitor social media campaigns, track social media engagement, and provide social media reports to key stakeholders including supervisors, directors, and other executives. Additionally, we used Sprout Social as a way to schedule content and help create a content calendar we could follow.
  • Scheduling content
  • Aggregating analytics from various social media platforms
  • One-click reporting
  • Fairly basic interface
  • Analytics are surface level
  • No social listening
If you have a small social media team and need a way to quickly and easily monitor your owned social media channels, track conversations on your posts and engage with your fans or followers, Sprout works well. It also is an easy way for users to create high-level reports for higher-ups.
Read Jimmy Mack's full review
December 15, 2017

Sprout Social Review: "Great Social Platform Manager"

Stephanie MacMillan
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
My hotel is unique because we are actually two hotels in one which means we have double the social profiles a normal property does. We use Sprout Social to keep track of all our social profiles and interactions. It assists in making sure nothing falls through the cracks or goes unanswered.
  • Creating and scheduling posts across a multitude of platforms.
  • Discovering content through RSS feeds and account feeds
  • Discovering potential profiles to follow and manage your following/followers.
  • Browser compatibility. I use chrome and sometimes the page doesn't fit properly or it gets stuck and won't refresh.
  • The way the pop-ups for scheduling work. Sometimes they look deformed or don't fit on the screen of my full sized laptop. It's odd the way they pop out and don't function properly.
  • The app has a long way to go. It's getting better with every up date, but I wish it was as user-friendly as the website.
It is truly a great platform for anyone trying to manage more than three social platforms at a time. I don't think it's worth purchasing for less than three social platforms because of its lack of ROI accountability. I wish it had a built-in tool that could create short links that could then be tracked in the application. Right now it relies on bit.ly and I have to go to an outside site to track links posted.
Read Stephanie MacMillan's full review
March 23, 2018

Sprout Social Review: "Really amazing tool for social media management! Recommended!"

Daniela Belevan
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We are a digital marketing agency, so most of us in the organization use the software with the exception of the web programmers and graphic designers. We use Sprout Social for social media management. It helps us keep track of our client's social media accounts and gather analytics and reports for our clients. The reporting is phenomenal and it makes it easy for my team and I to show the client the results.
  • Reporting made easy - Fast and easy reports and analytics. It makes our life simpler because it helps us show our clients the reports, especially the clients who don't understand social media or how it works. We enjoy using Spout Social for scheduling as well as analytics reports.
  • Social media management/Scheduling - My team and I love how simple it is to manage our client's social media account. We really appreciate that we are able to schedule posts for multiple accounts from one single interface, even if we want them to say the same thing. Scheduling social media posts makes our life much easier.
  • Great tools - The platform is user friendly and easy to understand. We've learned that Spout Social offers tools we didn't even know we needed or existed.
  • The interface is user friendly once you get used to it. But in the beginning, it may be a bit confusing to use. I had some issues at first but then I was able to use it faster and more efficiently.
  • There is a lot going on in the platform, it's very busy, and sometimes I forget about all the tools available. Sometimes the amount of tools can be a bit overwhelming. Especially for someone who is just starting to use the platform.
  • The cost can be a bit pricey, especially for a new agency or small business.
Sprout Social is a very useful tool for social media management. It has made my life easier because now I'm able to schedule posts and generate analytics and reporting for my clients. The only issue is the navigation of the interface, and how overwhelming the platform can become. Other than that, I could recommend it to anyone who handles many social media accounts.
Read Daniela Belevan's full review
December 18, 2017

Review: "Sprout Social easy on the eyes, not so much on the wallet"

April Muller
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
I requested Sprout Social for use at my agency based on previous use at a startup. For now only I am using it on one account but other teams have shown interest in acquiring it. It is used primarily for social media scheduling and management, allowing for more flexibility and organization than just using Facebook and Twitter (TweetDeck) natively.
  • Drag and drop scheduling. The queue is a great feature allowing you to auto-schedule posts at optimal times, and it's easy to rearrange posts at will.
  • Identification: Sprout color codes Twitter accounts according to their followers so you can quickly see message that may have high influence.
  • User interface is clean and easy to comprehend, not too busy.
  • Price is high, it took a very long time to get approval for my usage. They seem to be leaning toward larger companies and leaving the smaller users behind.
  • Customization: There are some tools that are designed for specific use cases (i.e. "tag this message for Sales") My use does not involve sales so I would like to be able to change the label but cannot currently do so.
  • "Viralpost" feature isn't well-explained, the times scheduled seem to always be the same so it leaves you to wonder if it's really doing what it says it's doing.
With its out of the box ease of use, the software is great for small businesses and startups but not priced to be used by them. I would love the ability to have "editors" that aren't full admins so that other people in the organization can get acquainted with Sprout without having full abilities/being charged for an additional seat.
Read April Muller's full review
January 26, 2016

Sprout Social Review: "Entry Level Solution"

Shauna Gallagher
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Sprout Social is used within our marketing department and customer care department. We schedule content, and reply and engage with customers via Sprout Social.
  • Sprout Social is pretty intuitive, so it makes it an easy to understand tool for teams outside of our social team to understand and adapt to.
  • Lately, Sprout Social has been adding more features, especially for reporting and specifically Instagram as a channel.
  • Sprout Social could be adopting to trends faster.
  • Mobile app is clunky for on the go publishing, monitoring and reporting.
Sprout Social is well suited for lower budget, lower mentioned brands.
Read Shauna Gallagher's full review
January 22, 2016

"An Honest Review About Sprout Social's Effectiveness"

Fernando Ramirez
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
The organization I previously worked for used Sprout Social to do a variety of things. The social tool was used to schedule and manage social posting. We used the social listening tool it has, and the analytic reports Sprout Social allows you to export as PDF files. All of this was done to help manage our clients' social media accounts, and help track their social progress.
  • Sprout Social has an easy to use interface that allows non-tech savvy people to easily maneuver their way around the tool.
  • Sprout Social allows team collaboration, task management, and progress tracking for your social teams.
  • Sprout Social combines social listening, engagement, and management all into one platform.
  • For the features and functionality Sprout Social offers, the platform is a bit pricey.
  • While Sprout Social tries act as a one-stop shop social media management tool, it doesn't excel in two of its key features: social listening and social analytics.
  • Sprout Social is a great tool is you're not tech savvy or social savvy. It's easier for you to manage, but that's about it. Creating the value is up to you.
Sprout Social is well suited for individuals who are not tech savvy or social media savvy.
Read Fernando Ramirez's full review
January 22, 2016

Sprout Social Review: "A must use tool for social media success!!!"

Michelle Lynn
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Currently Sprout Social is used as our Social Media Scheduling Tool and we also use it for compiling some organic metrics.
  • Very easy to schedule posts for several different social media properties at once
  • Love the ability to view website traffic from Google Analytics within the interface
  • Very clean interface and slick interface!
  • Awesome reporting
  • Very easy to reply to mentions and view who retweeted your content
  • Can't export scheduled posts from calendar view into excel
  • Wish there was an export to view all your Twitter followers
I would absolutely recommend this dashboard to anyone in my network. I already have mentioned it to several of my friends and they all want it! I can't tell you how many times people stop and ask me how I was able to gain over 20,000 followers on Twitter (in 2 years) and tweet on average 400 tweets per month generate over 600 engagements. There is no way I would have been able to achieve this kind of success without Sprout Social.
Read Michelle Lynn's full review
December 11, 2015

Review: "Sprout Social - Grow your customer engagement using Social media"

Tapan Jain
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Sprout Social is used to manage various social profiles across the social platforms. Different teams for different departments use Sprout Social to enhance customer engagement and run campaigns. Once integrated with the CRM solution, tickets can be generated for customer concerns on social media and assigned to relevant teams. It also enables scheduling the content to various social networks from a single console and keeping track of what is being discussed about the business across all social media.
  • Sprout Social comes with a built in CRM which helps agents in more personalized responses to clients in line with their past conversations
  • Sprout Social has a Viral Post feature which has some sophisticated machine learning algorithms at the back end to decide the best time to post content on different mediums so as to get the maximum customer engagement
  • Sprout Social enables to post the content to the correct target segment like a specific organization, geography,industry or a particular institution. The content makes more sense to the relevant people and builds a strong perception among the target audience.
  • Sprout Social also supports bit.ly URL shortener, which makes it easy to post links on Twitter and make your posts look uncluttered. Further, you can track from within Sprout Social that how many people clicked on the link or forwarded the link.
  • A lot of social networks have been left unsupported by Sprout Social like Youtube and Pinterest. I believe it needs to support every medium to become a comprehensive social media management solution.
  • The ability to schedule content to various social mediums is limited in functionality. It does not let me chose a different time for each day when the content is supposed to be posted.
  • It is not very intuitive to figure out what all messages have already been catered and responded to.
Sprout Social really scores if you need to manage social profiles for different companies or different departments. As it comes with an inbuilt helpdesk feature to generate and assign tickets and supports collaboration across teams and within the team, it is apt if someone is looking to use social media to resolve customer concerns.
Read Tapan Jain's full review
March 18, 2015

Review: "Why YOU should check out Sprout Social!"

Olivia Ann Hurst
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • I absolutely love the Sprout Social's customer service - it's phenomenal! You can always reach a person 24/7 and get a speedy response via email, chat support, phone or even by tweeting to them. I feel pretty sure that at one point, Carolyn (one of their AWESOME customer service reps - she also wears other hats!) was pretty familiar with my name!
  • The dashboard is extremely user-friendly and makes the product extremely easy to use. Although it's rare I have a question about using the dashboard, customer service is always there immediately if I do!
  • Sprout Social is constantly improving their product. I love using their services because I know that this isn't as good as it's going to get (although pretty awesome) - but that they will always continue to one-up themselves! They grasp that social is constantly changing - and they want to provide the best services for their customers as possible.
  • Another awesome thing about Sprout is their app! It's also very user-friendly and comes quite in handy when I'm live-tweeting events for the university. It's definitely extremely helpful in keeping up with our multiple social accounts when I'm traveling, which is frequently.
  • One of the big things that Sprout Social is lacking is better Twitter analytics. While they do provide great information for my analytics reports, I still feel that they could be pulling in additional data that would be extremely beneficial to users.
  • I really wish that Sprout Social gave users the ability to manage additional social platforms, such as LinkedIn and Pinterest. This would be immensely helpful!
  • Sometimes when I archive messages in my inbox (and I typically average 100-150 a day, if not more), these messages will pop back up in my inbox either later that afternoon or weeks from when the original message was archived. I opened up my inbox this summer and found messages from February that had been previously archived!
I would tell a colleague - Sprout is the perfect place to manage multiple social accounts. The user-friendliness and stellar customer service will make it an easy to use right away, with minimal training required. For someone who has never used Sprout Social before, knowing that their customer service is always there no matter what can really be appealing and make a big difference! I also like it when social companies have a good presence in the social space - and Sprout Social has exactly that. In the past, I've tweeted with an issue and received a response in 10 minutes or less. That's how you do it!
Read Olivia Ann Hurst's full review
February 25, 2015

Sprout Social Review: "What is the best Social Media management solution?"

Valentin Vesa
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
I began searching for a Social Media Management and Monitoring tool when I realized that I was finding it increasingly difficult to create the content, manage the outgoing messages and also monitor our social media venues effectively. It came down to Sprout Social. It is being used by the Marketing Department, specifically the Social Media group.
  • Simple to understand visual reports: the kind you can just SEND to managers, without the need to EXPLAIN what they mean :)
  • A robust scheduling platform so you can arrange the content for the week according to your publishing topics and still be allowed to manually intervene when/if needed
  • Being cloud-based and also available for smartphones and tablets allows for reliability: you'll always have some form of access to your material and venues, no matter where you are.
  • When we first started using SproutSocial they were still showing the "posted via" signature on Facebook, now it is gone. So the experience users see and live is made to look like it just came from a human, not by a scheduled machine, which is a great personal touch.
  • With LinkedIn Pages support in the building, they'll surely add another important platform to their portfolio.
  • Add YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr
  • Offer a freemium model
This is a very well suited solution for teams that are scattered around cities or even countries. Each member of the team is able to see what the colleagues did before him, see assigned tasks and perform accordingly.
The new unified inbox feature allows users to focus on one column where all the messages are being displayed, rather than running across different columns and content filter lists, as other solutions do.
Read Valentin Vesa's full review
April 08, 2015

User Review: "Sprout Social is a top-notch SMMS"

Ryan Collins
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • Sprout has an excellent support system. When we submit a ticket, a representative responds typically within an hour. They're even reachable by phone.
  • Sprout's analytics are easy to understand for newbies to social media metrics. It strikes a great balance between advanced users and beginners.
  • The RSS reader and bitly integration is fantastic and convenient!
  • It would be great to see additional platform support, like Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. I know Sprout is limited by each platform's API though.
Be sure to undergo a tutorial either through Sprout or from someone who understands the service. While it IS easy to understand, there's a slight learning curve that is definitely worth the hour of training. Plus, I recommend connecting their personal channels to the service so they are able to utilize all Sprout features for themselves.
Read Ryan Collins's full review
March 16, 2015

"Sprout Social Review"

Ryan Montano
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • I love the UI and UX design of Sprout. It is so easy to use and visually pleasing.
  • Sprout creates visually pleasing reports that wow my executive team.
  • Also, all the data is available via CSV files, so I can upload it to Anametrix via the Anametrix Excel Plugin. This is great because even though sprout does not have a connector to Anametrix, it does not prevent me from accessing the power of Anametrix web analytics
  • There is no much I dislike about sprout, but there are a few things that would make it better. Instagram and Pinterest connectors would be a great addition.
  • I would love to see the addition of a connector to a Linkedin company page.
  • Overall the Analytics could be more comprehensive and include connector to the ad networks from Facebook, Twitter, Adwords, and Linkedin.
I would make sure to know exactly how many people and how many networks will be using Sprout. It is easy to upgrade after, but knowing this will help you decide what package is right for you.
Read Ryan Montano's full review
October 30, 2014

"Seeded in Metrics, Sprout Social Grows Your Strategic Marketing"

Shonda Ranson
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • Integrates well with major social media channels twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ to post consistent messaging across channels.
  • Great metrics to help understand who is following on what channel and how well a message does in that channel.
  • Only aggregate that gets some data from Google+.
  • Very easy to learn, program for delivery delays and to integrate into messaging strategy.
  • Smart Inbox is great for seeing responses quickly and being able to respond to them in with a single contact point.
  • Great for team work and managing team messaging strategy, workflow and tasks in digital communications.
  • You shouldn't have to pay $20 more a month just to get Google Analytics integration when you can get Google Analytics for free.
  • Metrics can be skewed if your organization is required to be 8-5, Monday-Friday – especially in the response time. Should be a way to adjust for operational hours.
  • LinkedIn only grabs my personal account and not our City page, so while it works with LinkedIn, it isn't very helpful for the organization.
  • Would like to see more for Google+ data.
I recommend this product to colleagues and even bring printouts of the reports to demonstrate not only the social media reach that I've built, but the metrics presented by the tool on job interviews. When considering if the product is right for your organization, think about how easy it is to get the metrics for your key channels. Can you tell when your messages are successful? not successful? and why? Metrics are an essential component of a strong messaging strategy. If you just guess and cast a wide net, you're not only wasting your time, but you're likely turning some of your followers off. Sprout Social lets you see who is interacting with your messages on what channels and in what way.
Read Shonda Ranson's full review
October 21, 2014

Review: "Sprout Social: Easy to Navigate for a Novice User"

Jennifer Wagner
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
When I was actively utilizing Sprout Social, it was on a daily basis for a small magazine and coinciding website. Daily, I would post news stories/articles on the website as requested by the company's owner. In addition, I was required to also post these stories to Twitter and Facebook as a means to direct traffic to the story on the company's website. Multiple news stories/articles were posted on the website daily, therefore it was essential to schedule the tweets and posts to Facebook so that our followers would not be bombarded with information all at once. In a company with employees from all around the world, Sprout Social was an essential and effective tool that each employee could use despite the varying time zone differences. Our tweets and Facebook posts were all scheduled to post via EST, thus making for great organizational tool for all employees.
  • Superb Organizational Tool: As an editor, I was able to easily schedule the company's website content (i.e. articles and news stories) via Sprout Social to publish on Twitter and Facebook at a specific time so that readers and social media followers would not be bombarded with stories all at once.
  • Simple and Effective Marketing Tool: The use of hashtags via Twitter and Facebook allowed me to direct our content to specific people in specific locations. Also, being able to schedule content, via Sprout Social, from the website to post on Twitter and Facebook helped to drive readers to the company's website.
  • Adaptable for all types of users with different backgrounds: As an editor with a writing background, I was unfamiliar with social media and marketing when I first began working for the company in which I was employed. However, Sprout Social is simple to navigate and it provides users with helpful tips and instructional elements to better understand how it works.
  • As a basic user, I did not delve into any of the perhaps "complexities" of Sprout Social. However, there were times when I would schedule content to publish on Facebook or Twitter and it would indeed not publish. Therefore, immediate notification of error would be helpful.
  • When I first began using Sprout Social, I did find it difficult to understand how to incorporate an image to post to Facebook. While I did teach myself how to do it, the steps were a bit confusing upon first use. Therefore I would recommend simple image uploading to improve Sprout Social use for beginners.
Because I was a novice user and knew very little about Twitter/social media when I first began using Sprout Social, I would rate it as an 8. It was generally easy to learn and adapt to; however, there were times when I had difficulty (i.e. uploading an image to Sprout Social to specifically have post to Facebook). Therefore, beginners should find Sprout Social easy to use; however, they will probably stumble upon a few things they have difficultly with.
Read Jennifer Wagner's full review
October 16, 2014

Sprout Social Review: "Sprout is Okay, But Not Great for Us."

Stephanie Spear
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • Platform is great for engaging users on Twitter.
  • Platform makes it easy to collaborate with other team members to assign tasks and communicate internally.
  • The platform is very user-friendly and well-designed.
  • I love that they integrate scheduling for Google +. This is not available on many other platforms and is a big draw for us.
  • The Twitter comparisons are helpful - they allow you to compare your brand on Twitter to your competitors in a very broad overview.
  • While Sprout is very easy to schedule, there are some deficiencies. For instance, tagging Facebook users is not possible through their platform. This is very inhibiting. Also the scheduled posts only can appear as a feed and not as a monthly or weekly overview, which would be helpful.
  • I find the reporting to be pretty lacking. It doesn't allow any customization and the data it reports is similar to what you could see through Facebook or Twitter analytics. It doesn't offer any time-over-time comparisons, sentiment analysis, keyword analysis, or any overall brand analysis. This is largely the reason for my negative feelings about the platform.
If the colleague is using Sprout as a brand to answer questions of their users and engage followers and find potential new followers it might be a great tool. If you need a robust analytics tool, this isn't for you. If you need to tag other users and pages on Facebook, I would not recommend scheduling through Sprout.
Read Stephanie Spear's full review
October 16, 2014

Sprout Social Review: "Haley's 2 Cents on Sprout"

Haley Holt
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • Schedule content, but only Twitter.
  • Reporting! Reporting is by far my favorite tool of Sprout Social. It is easy to create custom reports for my clients using Sprout Social reporting. Exporting PDF and CSV make it so easy.
  • Discovery, it really helps my clean up my following on Twitter. I also can discover many people through searches and creating lists within Sprout.
  • Managing multiple content writers and community managers permissions and track what they have done.
  • I don't know if the clicks on Twitter are most accurate and I also wish it could pull in tweets.
  • I schedule all of my Facebook and Google+ posts on those social platforms, because it doesn't allow proper Facebook tags and the Google+ hashtags don't always show up.
  • I wish there was a Pinterest integration.
If you're managing multiple clients, make that clear. Also, ask if any integrations with platforms like Pinterest or Instagram will be coming soon.
Read Haley Holt's full review
November 04, 2014

Sprout Social Review: "Sleek, easy to use, provides premium data"

Annesa L Lacey
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • Sprout Social was maybe like the second platform to come along to streamline social media management, but I love the ease of navigation within the SS platform, & it provides far better [& detailed] analytics.
  • Ease of social engagement is the easiest, I think, of all of the social media cross-platform management systems.
  • SS is more sleek & appealing, aesthetically.
  • Appreciate the flexibility of choosing which data is relevant in managing analytic reporting.
  • Maybe this is a FB issue, but I sure would appreciate being allowed to manage my FB Business page directly from SS. [Always get that obnoxious "you are currently posting as (business page login) & you must post as (personal log-in) to continue" message.] Can only access my personal FB pg which is a direct portal to my business page, which leaves my FB business posting at manual status currently.
Definitely contact a vendor, as SS has excellent customer service & reps who are very patient & helpful.
Read Annesa L Lacey's full review
November 04, 2014

Review: "Very Happy With Sprout Social to Manage Our Social Media Accounts"

Mike Wolfe
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Sprout Social to manage the social media accounts for our company as well as our clients. The tools allow us to stay on top on social trends and they have excellent reporting tools for us to share with our clients. The main reason we made the switch to Sprout Social was the reporting.
  • Their reporting is excellent.
  • It's easy to use for multiple accounts.
  • It's not free but it is reasonably priced.
  • They have excellent customer service.
  • The platform layout isn't that exciting.
  • No freemium model can make it a tough sell to clients.
I believe where Sprout Social stands out is in their reporting process. They provide accurate, detailed reports included with your monthly fee, where others charge for reporting. They have made it easy for us to create reports on a regular basis and share them with our clients. It provides a professional, easy to read look and feel.
Read Mike Wolfe's full review
October 19, 2014

Sprout Social Review: "Growing a social garden one sprout at a time."

Doreen Nicastro
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
In my consulting business, I recommended and implement social tools for small businesses and non-profit organizations. The strength of this product is in its ease of set up and reporting. We like it because it saves time and increases efficiency. The reporting is simple yet powerful.
  • The set-up and organization of social profiles, properties and networks makes it easy to manage and organize.
  • Publishing and monitoring for Facebook Twitter Linkedin Google+
  • Easy to set up and report on social metrics.
  • Google analytic integration.
  • Training on the product to build understanding, depth and breath of social reports and coverage.
  • Increase application integration with the ability to publish and monitor beyond its current capacity, i.e., LinkedIn business pages, business blog, and other social sites.
  • Limited reports and support.
Sprout Social is a solid tool for small and midsize organizations which value social interaction with their audience and wish to measure the effectiveness of engagement on Facebook, Twitter , Google+ and Linked In. Businesses with limited resources will find it a great way to organize social profiles and networks, manage and interact. However with their lack of application integration for example with LinkedIn business pages and groups along with other social applications, like Foursquare, Instagram, Pinterest, it falls a bit short.
Read Doreen Nicastro's full review
October 15, 2014

User Review: "All You Need is Sprout Social"

Pilcher, MBA Laura
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Sprout Social allows me to link all my clients profiles in one place and keep track of who is talking about them and when. The ease of scheduling posts and tracking results makes Sprout Social my first choice above all other social media distribution platforms.
  • Ease of scheduling posts.
  • Easy to read analytical reports.
  • Tracking conversations
  • Needs to be able to post to LinkedIn business pages
  • Forces you to put text above an image. Some images do not need text.
  • LinkedIn and Google+ analytics missing from reports.
Sprout Social is appropriate for every user.
Read Pilcher, MBA Laura's full review
June 02, 2014

Sprout Social Review: "SproutSocial - Easy to use and effective. Save yourself some time and utilize Sprout."

Mckenzie Masters
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
SproutSocial is used by every employee within the organization. We use it primarily to program content for clients' social media outlets. We focus primarily within the 'Publishing' section versus any other section. It allows us to manage our social content in a quick and easy way.
  • SproutSocial allows you to see the entire month when you look at what's scheduled. You are able to see exactly what days already have content. This makes it easier to program and allows you to make sure you don't double-program.
  • The 'Reports' page is easy to read. Some analytics tools can be overwhelming or very confusing. SproutSocial makes it easy to see the analytics for each outlet that your organization controls. It's also easy to export all the data - this is especially helpful when printing off analytics for clients.
  • You cannot schedule content for LinkedIn through SproutSocial. Some of our clients want to post to LinkedIn so it makes it harder. It would be easier to be able to use SproutSocial for everything.
  • Only one employee at a time can be logged into SproutSocial. This is very difficult when several employees need to program for different clients. If another employee signs on while someone else is in the program, the first person on will be kicked off without warning. This often causes whatever project the employee was working on to be lost.
SproutSocial is definitely more suited for those who have to manage many different pages. For our organization, we have 10 different clients so we have a lot to manage. SproutSocial makes it easy to post content for each client and make sure that everyone is covered. If there aren't a lot of pages necessary, then it wouldn't be that hard to just post the content organically versus through an outlet. Analytics on this website are easy to read so it makes it easy to give out to clients if necessary.
Read Mckenzie Masters's full review

Sprout Social Scorecard Summary

Likelihood to Recommend (249)
8.0
Likelihood to Renew (61)
6.2
Usability (16)
8.0
Availability (8)
7.7
Performance (7)
8.0
Support (12)
9.2
Online Training (3)
7.3
Implementation (10)
8.9

Feature Scorecard Summary

Boolean keyword searches (8)
7.6
Filtering out noise/spam (10)
7.3
Sentiment analysis (2)
5.5
Broad channel coverage (3)
6.9
Content planning and scheduling (14)
8.3
Audience targeting (14)
7.6
Content optimization (11)
7.2
Workflow management (13)
7.8
Automated routing and prioritization (4)
6.3
Customer interaction histories (14)
8.4
Bulk actions (12)
7.1
Lead generation (10)
6.6
Content marketing (8)
7.7
Paid media management (3)
6.2
Campaigns and promotions (4)
7.2
Twitter (14)
9.3
Facebook (14)
8.7
LinkedIn (11)
7.8
Google+ (11)
8.8
Instagram (6)
7.0
Pinterest (1)
8
YouTube (1)
8
Campaign success analytics (14)
7.8
Real-time tracking (13)
9.0
Competitor analysis (10)
8.3
Role-based user permissions & privileges (12)
8.8
Mobile access (12)
7.0

About Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media management platform for businesses. This platform powers smart social communication for leading brands around the world including Anthropologie, GrubHub, Hyatt, MailChimp, Spotify and Zipcar. Sprout Social is available via a web browser, iOS and Android apps. Sprout enables brands to more effectively communicate on social channels, collaborate across teams and provide an exceptional customer experience. The vendor says that its intuitive platform was designed with the user in mind, making it easy for anyone to publish content, monitor their social presence, engage with their audience and analyze social media efforts across all connected profiles. Teams can be up and running in minutes—Sprout does not require up-front investment, has flexible contract terms and there is little-to-no implementation needed. Sprout is a Twitter Certified Product, Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer and Google+ Pages API Partner, and also integrates with Instagram, LinkedIn, Zendesk, UserVoice and Salesforce.
Categories:  Social Media Analytics,  Social Media Customer Service,  Social Media Marketing,  Social Media Management

Sprout Social Features

Listening/monitoring Features
Has featureBoolean keyword searches
Has featureFiltering out noise/spam
Does not have featureSentiment analysis
Does not have featureBroad channel coverage
Publishing Features
Has featureContent planning and scheduling
Has featureAudience targeting
Has featureContent optimization
Has featureWorkflow management
Engagement Features
Does not have featureAutomated routing and prioritization
Has featureCustomer interaction histories
Has featureBulk actions
Marketing Features
Has featureLead generation
Has featureContent marketing
Does not have featurePaid media management
Does not have featureCampaigns and promotions
Channel coverage/integration Features
Has featureTwitter
Has featureFacebook
Has featureLinkedIn
Has featureGoogle+
Has featureInstagram
Does not have featurePinterest
Does not have featureYouTube
Reporting/analytics Features
Has featureCampaign success analytics
Has featureReal-time tracking
Has featureCompetitor analysis
Account management Features
Has featureRole-based user permissions & privileges
Has featureMobile access

Sprout Social Integrations

Sprout Social Competitors

Pricing

Has featureFree Trial Available?Yes
Does not have featureFree or Freemium Version Available?No
Does not have featurePremium Consulting/Integration Services Available?No
Entry-level set up fee?No

Sprout Social Support Options

 Free VersionPaid Version
Phone
Live Chat
Email
FAQ/Knowledgebase
Social Media
Video Tutorials / Webinar

Sprout Social Technical Details

Deployment Types:SaaS
Operating Systems: Unspecified
Mobile Application:Apple iOS, Android
Supported Languages: Spanish, Portuguese