Sprout Social

Opmerkingen: People seek out social media software primarily for automation. But that doesn't solve the workflow and analytics issues that social media and community managers face. Sprout enables us to load content and art into the automation platform as drafts, submit for approval and then automate posting. We also need a competitive edge as an agency, and using this software with the ability to provide more robust analytics than what is provided in the native platforms is a huge win. The biggest improvement we've seen to social media tools in general came from the launch of the social listening tool. However, the pricing model is hindering us from being able to use it. Big bummer. And it can be fixed. We hope you will consider applying the agency model pricing structure that exists for all other functionalities to this particular function. It's essential for us to be able to incorporate it into our new biz process and the current cost structure is preventing us from doing so. Please help!

Pluspunten: The agency model sold us. Big win to invite larger groups rather than paying by the "seat" as previous models and other services demand. The approval process and analytics go beyond what is available in the native platforms which is essential for business use. The social listening is what we've been waiting for--and will be instrumental in our relationship moving forward. With that said, there is a caveat, listed below.

Minpunten: The social listening is amazing. However, the sales model is seriously flawed. Our clients will not pay every month for each social listener. Moreover, our agency needs to use this as a way to earn new business. We have many pitches in process at any time and it's not feasible for us to pay every month per listener. As such, this amazing service is not available to us on the scale it needs to be. Please come up with a better pricing model so we can use and sell this service. As it stands now, only the really big agencies will be able to afford it. You need the mid-sized agencies like us (about 50 employees). Just like the agency model sold us by not having to pay by the seat, we can't pay per listener. If you made that available to us, say 3 listeners per client in our agency model, that would be a win. It would limit the number so you could up-sell in those cases where big companies want to listen for a lot of different indicators, but it wouldn't prohibit the broader use of the tool for the masses--which will drive significant growth. Additionally, this is a huge differentiator for your business. If you make it out of reach for most clients, you loose your edge. Help us. Help yourselves. Give us this tool! And give it to us in a way that our clients will pay for it.

Pluspunten: Great user interface (I like it much better than Hootsuite's interface). Customer service is superb! Anytime I had any issues with using SproutSocial, their customer service was a chat or email away. Their customer service seems like a very small team of people, but they are very quick to respond and get to a solution. I've used SproutSocial for several different companies, both large and small, and it works great for managing it all. Analytical reports are clean and better than the ones in Hootsuite. My favorite features are the reports, social listing tools (You can see who's interacting with your company or specific keywords you set up) and being able to 'check off' messages or notifications that you have seen or responded to already. In HootSuite, you cannot do this and sometimes messages can be missed. Another favorite feature in the reporting is being able to compare your company page with competitors and see how you stack up agains the competition. Following/unfollowing accounts on Twitter is another great and useful feature.

Minpunten: There are a couple social networks that cannot be integrated with SproutSocial, and therefore I have to resort to also using Hootsuite. Things like LinkedIn Showcase Pages, Youtube, Vimeo, LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups to name a few cannot be scheduled or automated. SproutSocial covers the larger social media pages you need to manage like Facebook pages and Twitter. Because it cannot schedule at all social networks, I have to do most of my scheduling in Hootsuite.