SproutSocial: Not for everyone but good for those who want to stay in control of posts
June 12, 2019
SproutSocial: Not for everyone but good for those who want to stay in control of posts
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Standard
Overall Satisfaction with Sprout Social
I've used SproutSocial for a couple of clients. One client selected it (even though I was interested in using a different solution) because it allowed the client to approve each post before it was added to the queue. Another client had already implemented it. They didn't seem entirely happy with it but were in a contract.
- You can share posts across social media channels. So you can take one post, select FB, LI, and Twitter for example, and then customize it for each. Pretty easy to do that.
- You can choose if you want someone to "approve" the post before it goes into the queue. If someone has that power, it makes it easy for them to have control over what's posted.
- You can repeat posts that performed well. To see how posts did, you can pull a report. Then you can choose to re-use that post. You can customize it or just set it up to go again.
- I struggled even after lengthy conversations with the support team to use the images that were posted with a client's blog posts. That was a major issue. It took a lot of extra time to select images to go with the posts. Never solved that issue.
- They have a queue—can't remember what it's called—that you're supposed to be able to load with posts that you want to repeat at various times each month. This was difficult to use. Again, in spite of asking for support's help, we couldn't figure out how to use it effectively.
- It does a lot, maybe TOO much. It's a little overwhelming. They probably need to do more training to help you understand how to utilize all the features. It's too complicated and may be overkill for many.
2 - CEO/owner
marketing/PR
marketing/PR
- The client that made the decision to use Sprout immediately saw the benefit because they could see that more people were being driven to their blog.
- You could see which posts were performing the best.
- You could see which posts were getting no engagement. Although I'd say that just because no one is engaging with them doesn't mean they're not successful. Much of the audience are lurkers.
- Buffer and Hootsuite
I didn't select Sprout. Clients selected it. I would recommend Buffer. I also wanted one client to evaluate AgoraPulse. I haven's used Hootsuite enough to know it would stack up. The primary reason the one client selected Sprout was for the approval ability. I definitely feel it's more difficult/frustrating to use.