Disclaimer: I wasn’t paid to review this, I review this on my own free will and nobody put a gun at my puppy head asking me for a review. (oh don’t get any ideas)
If you notice at the side bar, there is an image from Sprout Social, that is because I know some people from Sprout Social and they are amazing people, they were kind enough to give a chance to play around with the tool.
So… Ask me what I think of Sprout social
I like it…
Ask me again what I think of it.
I reaaally like it
Okay ask me what i reaaally think of it.
Okay, if you insist.. here are my unbiased review of what i REALLY think of Sprout Social.
Sprout Social Review
Pros
Affordable – One thing that makes this tool attractive is the price. I recommend small businesses to try this tool. If you’re wary, there is a 30 days free professional account or business account (not affiliate link, its a tracking link). If you like it, you will only need to pay a small fee of $9.00 a month for a pro account and $49 for business account. All you need to do is sacrifice 3 cups of coffee for a pro account, which is definitely worth the tool seeing what you will get from using this.
Easy and beautiful report – I understand that companies that manage social media accounts for clients are always seeking for report because they have to send to their clients. With sprout social, it will ease your work by a ton as it automatically creates a beautiful and colorful report with your company logo. So even if you don’t have an eye for design, you’ll still be able to generate a report with a click of a button.
Compare with competitors – You can also compare yourself with a competitor. Comparison will show the number of daily mentions, % engagements, and you’ll also see who’s talking to them and find out if you’re following them or not.
Conversation history – Sometimes it’s through to remember every conversation you had with a customer. With the history function you’ll be able to check past conversation with your customers. What a great way to show your appreciate to a customer by remembering every conversation!
Search – This is definitely a feature that all social management tools has and one of the most important feature in social media. Listening. You’ll be able to search based on location or country.
Customizable inbox – You’ll be able to customize what you want to show in your inbox such as mentions, DM’s, retweets (from the retweet feature from twitter) and new followers. For small businesses, you can thank new followers for following you when they just followed you.
Influential users: Want to know who’s influential? This tool shows you by putting a star symbol in the conversation. Star = Influential. Remember that. This star will be shown on tweets as well as DM’s.
Location Manager – It’s a feature that allows you to find out who checks-in at your location. I don’t use it but I just registered a location to review it. (will update about this soon). What I notice is you’ll be able to find influential people who checks in. More on this soon….
Other features includes
- Scheduling
- RSS (Automatically post when there is an update)
Cons
Certain features are slow – I notice navigating some features is slow. Either that or I have a really crappy internet connection (which I do).
Influencer user search: I think what’s missing is the ability to search for influential users. What I would like to do is insert a keyword, and I’ll be able to find influential users according to sprout social or klout in a particular location.
No Facebook search – I think the Facebook search would be a great additional tool to Sprout Social. This is because Facebook search is really bad. If you think finding a needle in a haystack is tough, try using Facebook search function. However I understand there is a problem with Facebook api’s.
No Mobile app – Mobile will be HUGE in 2012. Currently there is a no mobile app for sprout social yet compared to hootsuite or cotweet for business.
Oh.. There is also no sentiment analysis search at the moment.
Conclusion
Overall, in my honest opinion, sprout social (not affiliate link) is a great product designed for small business owners. The price tag makes it affordable any small business to use and compete with the big guys. Best part is you’ll be able to try it for 30 days free.
How about you? Have you tried Sprout Social yet? I’d love to hear what you think!
@Brittany at Sprout Social LoL! I would definitely say you guys got the beauty and the brains for sure :)) HOTTT and sizzling! @rayhiltz
@SharelOmer LOL! everyone knows that, well i think its a whole different market. I think there are certain advantages of cotweet and i think sprout social has other advantages too, because I have a couple of profiles, my main profile for connecting with people, cotweet helps me with ease. However i also run a small business and I think sprout social fits that. That is why i think the price and the features is great for small businesses.
@maxinemaxxy Wow, that would be great additions, you could definitely send it to them so that they can review it.
I agree, the support is great! they have an amazing team and everyone tells me how much they love spout social because of their support. (and the tool of course)
Hi @Brittany at Sprout Social Thanks so much for the response. Going to the Twitter homepage just doesn’t feel right anymore. Sprout Social is designed the way I want my Twitter/Facebook/Wordpress etc to look and feel. Can’t wait for more features to roll out!
-Danny @Sharingforce
@phillipdodd@Brittany at Sprout Social same here!
@AskAaronLee@phillipdodd@Brittany at Sprout Social Hey Aaron, can’t wait to get the mobile app and subsequently your review/thoughts. We’re on the same page here, so I can trust we’ll probably have similar thoughts on the soon-to-come mobile app.
-Danny @Sharingforce
@AskAaronLee In regards to the laptop issue…yeah, I totally understand. I’m fortunate enough to have the portability of an 11″ 2 point something pound laptop. But like you said, living in Toronto, using a laptop on the subway during rush hour usually isn’t an option. In that regard, a mobile app is clearly the logical move.
As for the shortcut keys, I found them by accident! So I’m glad I could share that feature with others.
Great site! First time reader and responder. Needless to say, I’ll be back.
-Danny
@phillipdodd Thanks for being such a fan, Phillip! Happy to hear that you’re digging Sprout Social and finding it super helpful to manage your social media accounts.
@maxinemaxxy Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, Maxine (and for being such an awesome supporter)!
@AskAaronLee@Sharingforce Just wanted to add that the keyboard shortcuts can be found at the bottom of the Resources page (http://sproutsocial.com/resources)!
@Brittany at Sprout Social It’s my pleasure! I may have to write up a review of my own pretty soon. By the way, the secret is in the logo. I just can’t help promoting things with nice a logo 😉
@phillipdodd Haha – I’m sure our designers will be happy to hear that they were able to win you over with the logo design! Looking forward to your own review of Sprout Social.
@SharelOmer Actually I would say my current “stack” is rapportive, connectedhq and crowdbooster and hootsuite. The prior three, while having the ability to set up tweets, are not even vaguely a twitter management client in the way that hootsuite is. Different classes of products entirely. Now that you have me thinking of it, I’m going to put together a bigger blog post that talks more about these from a composite approach.
@Brittany at Sprout Social Anytime Brittany! 🙂
Very detailed review of a tool I may not have otherwise considered. Thanks. 🙂 The screenshots and pro/con list were quite helpful.
@Tinu Thanks, so glad you found it useful :))
@AskKimrapportiveconnectedhqcrowdboosterhootsuite Hi Kim 🙂 this are great tools to use, and indded reading a post about the day to day tools you use would be very interesting to read.
looking forward to get your insights 🙂
Sharel
@AskAaronLee Sounds good, the main product philosophy is taking twitter client to a new level of relationship structuring…
I wonder what we can learn from it, since our philosophy is not to replace apps like co-tweet, but complete them..
Thanks for sharing pal,
Sharel
Aaron I would be lost without Sprout Social. I maneuver from one client to the next to the next to the next and handle all of their social media accounts in one place (for the most part). The reports, as you mentioned, is an excellent feature because clients don’t want to be overwhelmed with analytics but they sure do like those graphs and pie charts! 🙂 Thanks for the great review.
@InspiredAnnette Thanks for the #SproutLove, Annette! Always happy to hear from you 🙂 And glad that you find the reports especially useful.
@SharelOmer I worked quite a while on that post yesterday. Hopefully Aaron doesn’t mind me linking to it from here since I linked to this one from it. Hope you enjoy it: http://just-ask-kim.com/7-software-solutions-for-social-marketing-work-flow/
@AskKim Hi Kim 🙂 great post… thanks for sharing your tools 🙂
Loved your passion to engage with other ppl, and be on top of your community 🙂 this is great best practices.
there are some new tools there for me that i will be sure to check.
Thanks!
Sharel
@AskKim Hi Kim! We really appreciate the feedback. SproutSocial is an amazing piece of software. We share your sentiment that if we were to add, for example, some of Connected’s CRM functionality, we could potentially be a lot more powerful. We’re exploring many ideas and will definitely keep you in mind.
– Ricky
CEO, Crowdbooster.com
Very comprehensive evaluation of a tool I might not contain or else measured.Pros and cons is really helpful.Hope to hear more from you.
They now have a mobile app, too!
Excellent Job on the review.. Keep posing some more useful and informative post like this.. 🙂 Be back here for more!
Unfortunately when they upgraded the platform it was full of bugs and probably still is. Personally I would not recommend Sprout Social I just don’t trust there data.
@WendyKier Not trying to be contrarian Wendy, but SproutSocial works 100% for me now. I do agree with you though, when they did the upgrade there were several bugs and kinks that needed to be solved, but they resolved them quite quickly. Now SproutSocial works excellent and I haven’t had any issues whatsoever.
One other quick yet major point about them, is that they truly listen and communicate with the users whether it’s building new features or asking customer services. I received personalized emails from Carolyn and Justyn themselves.
PS: I am not endorsed by SproutSocial in anyway, shape, or form. I’m simply a user is very satisfied with their service and product. 😛
@WendyKier Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Wendy. While the launch of our latest version was a little rocky, we’ve been working to smooth out any and all issues as quickly as possible. Most issues are on case-by-case basis and are being dealt with promptly. Again, very sorry that you encountered issues, but we have the majority of them resolved at this point.
In regards to the data, we give you all the data that the Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn APIs allow us to (which is the same data that other app developers get as well).
Hope this helps clarify a few things and thanks for sharing your thoughts, Wendy. We understand that we’re not a perfect fit for everyone! And thank you, Dave, as well! Appreciate the support.
@DaveGallant I just wanted to thank you for your support, Dave! It’s our number one goal to provide consistent and effective support for all of our customers. I love helping out whenever possible and I truly appreciate your positive feedback!
@SproutSupport You’re welcome! Thank you!
@DaveGallant@WendyKier
It’s great that you had such a high level of customer service.. My experience was not a 100% or even 50% satisfactory. Issues were on-going and not resolved. I’ve seen similar responses I received on Twitter…
I really enjoy using Sprout as well! I also favored Sprout in my blog post when reviewing the best social media monitoring tools. I like the fact that they give you a 30 day trial on any of their services and the social dashboard is really simple to use.
@Jade__Wright Thanks Jade! We appreciate the #SproutLove and support.
Curious, what do you think since they upgraded to v2?
I had a personal goto meeting call from one of their team members this morning who walked me through the main functionalities and pointed out the harder to find features all for free.
Amazing service & an amazing product. I’ve tried nearly all of them and the UX on sprout social and reporting is so much more readable and intuitive. Big thumbs up.
@andrewobrien1 Happy to hear your demo went well and you’re digging the app, Andrew! Very much appreciate you sharing your thoughts here. Let us know if we can help with anything else along the way!
@Brittany at Sprout Social Gee you were onto that, must be one of those web searches in sprout social hey 🙂
@andrewobrien1 Haha – I certainly try to be! And of course 🙂
Hey Arron. Yes, I am giving it a try now! But I do have the iPhone app for it 🙂
Aaron, I am hoping you can help with a few questions, you are so familiar with these platforms,
I have 40 Facebook Pages and am looking at the best way to combine all analytics to create a knock-out presentation to show potential sponsors who I want to work with.
We are making huge strides in our pages, getting on average, 24% ‘talking about us’ numbers (with up to 88% on a good day), combined fans of 16K, and viral rates of average 25% and as high quite often as 60% – Is it just me or are these amazing numbers? I have NOTHING to compare them against to know!
Social Sprout has been good but the numbers do not seem to be the same category as what I see on my Insights reports.
and also once I hit over 40 pages, the price jumps from $60/month to over $800/month (c-r-a-z-y-)!!!
Can you tell me, honestly, exactly what numbers someone looks for in order to determine how influential they are in Facebook??? No-one seems to know this! Thanks, Debbie
Do you know of other companies that are positioning themselves as being influential on Facebook? What numbers they monitoring, are they different than what I mentioned above that we monitor?
email: debbie@weepiggies.com
Yes, they just came up with it.
Man.. Bummer that the basic account is now $39 per month. Too pricey for me!
Yeah, the pricing seems a bit outta control. I’ve been using SS, and it really doesn’t seem to show me the trending that I REALLY want. Your point, above, about how I could scrape for Influencers with keywords is a major valid point. That way, I can trend around keywords and spot individuals to touch base with.
Sendible is sooooo much better!