Sprout Social

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Sprout Social, Inc.
Company typePublic
IndustryInternet
FoundedChicago, IL, USA (2010)
FounderJustyn Howard
Aaron Rankin
Gil Lara
Peter Soung
Headquarters131 S. Dearborn St, Chicago, IL 60603, USA
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Justyn Howard (CEO)
Aaron Rankin (CTO)
Gil Lara (CCO)
Scott Brandt (CMO)
ProductsSocial media management
Social media marketing
Social media customer service
Social media analytics
Number of employees
1,200[1]
Websitesproutsocial.com

Sprout Social is a social media management software for businesses. Sprout is a tool intended to help brands communicate with customers across social channels, collaborate across teams, and measure the effectiveness of their efforts.

Sprout's platform integrates with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, Zendesk, UserVoice, Feedly, and Google Analytics. Bambu by Sprout Social, launched in August 2015, is an employee advocacy platform that allows organizations to curate content for employees to read and share on social media.[2]

Sprout Social was founded in 2010 by Justyn Howard, Aaron Rankin, Gil Lara, and Peter Soung. Howard Justyn of Sprout Social is on Crain's Chicago 40 Under 40 2014 list.[3] Sprout is a privately held company backed by venture capital funds including Goldman Sachs, New Enterprise Associates, and Lightbank.[4]

History[edit]

In late 2009, current Sprout Social CEO Justyn Howard worked for an enterprise software company. He was looking for a tool to help him use social media to connect and communicate with customers. He found that solutions on the market were consumer-focused and needed more business components to make social media work for brands. So he set out to build a solution, working alongside current Sprout CTO Aaron Rankin, Creative Director Gil Lara, and Director of Web & Mobile Engineering Peter Soung.[5]

Sprout Social, Inc. was founded in April 2010. The company has raised a total of $60 million, including a $1 million initial funding round in 2010 led by Lightbank, $10 million in Series B funding from New Enterprise Associates (NEA) in February 2011, and $42 million in Series C funding from Goldman Sachs Investment Partners and NEA.[6][7]

In November 2011, Sprout released S2, the second generation of the platform that is the basis of the current model. This release included customizable dashboards tailored to each user's social media responsibilities, support for multiple users, iPhone functionality, various options for strategic partner integrations, and more.[8][9]

In April 2015, Sprout released Spanish and Portuguese language support.[10]

In August 2015, Sprout launched Bambu by Sprout Social, an employee advocacy platform. Bambu enables organizations to curate selected content for employees to read and share using their personal LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook profiles.[2]

In March 2016, Sprout launched Landscape by Sprout Social, a free tool that resizes images for seven social networks and custom sizes.[11]

Software and services[edit]

Sprout Social's self-named engagement platform is a web application that allows users to manage multiple social profiles across various social networks from a single interface. It is also available via web browsers, iOS, and Android apps.

In 2015, software review site G2 Crowd ranked Sprout Social as the top social media management tool in customer satisfaction.[12]

Social media marketing[edit]

Sprout enables teams and users to execute a social media marketing strategy by creating, scheduling, and publishing content. The Sprout Queue allows users to schedule content while ViralPost technology distributes content optimally. Sprout integrates with Google Analytics to provide insight into social media campaigns' return on investment (ROI).[13][14][15]

Social media engagement[edit]

The Sprout Smart Inbox is a stream of messages that provides users with a holistic view of incoming messages and actions across social networks, allowing users to monitor, respond, and engage. Users can create brand-relevant keyword searches to capture and track all mentions of their brand. Additionally, users can tag and filter messages, assign messages as Tasks to members of their team, identify sales leads, and mark messages as complete.[16]

Social media customer service[edit]

The social media Customer Service feature allows social media users and customer service teams to connect with customers, view conversation history, resolve issues, and build brand advocacy. Sprout's tasks feature allows users to route messages to the appropriate team member. The social CRM feature logs all conversation history between the profile and the user. Sprout integrates with Zendesk and UserVoice.[17][13][18]

Social media analytics[edit]

The Social Media Analytics feature provides audience intelligence and analysis capabilities. Reports within Sprout include Group, Engagement, Team, Task Performance, Facebook Pages, Twitter Profiles, Trends, Twitter Comparison, Twitter Listening, Instagram Profiles, and Sent Messages Reports. It also incorporates Google Analytics and Bitly tracking.[19]

Employee advocacy[edit]

Bambu by Sprout Social is an employee advocacy platform where employers have a central location to add, curate, and organize content for employees to stay informed on company and industry news. Employees can then share approved content on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Additionally, employers can track the types and impact of shared content.[2]

Social media image resizing[edit]

Landscape by Sprout Social is a free tool that allows simple image resizing for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, and custom sizes.[20]

Partnerships and integrations[edit]

Sprout Social partnerships include:

  • Facebook Marketing Partner (since July 2012)[21]
  • Twitter Official Partner (since November 2012)[22][23][24]
  • Google+ Pages Third-Party Management Tool Certification (since May 2013)[25]
  • LinkedIn Company Page Partner (since September 2015)[26]
  • Founding member of Instagram Partner Program (since November 2015)[27][28]

In November 2015, Sprout partnered with Twitter to relive Twitter's Official Partner Program and worked with Twitter to pursue further solutions for social customer care.[29][30]

In addition, Sprout Social integrates with:

References[edit]

  1. ^ Sprout Social builtinchicago.org
  2. ^ a b c "Sprout Social Introduces Bambu to Enhance Social Advocacy for Employees". martechadvisor.com.
  3. ^ "Angela Aman of Retail Properties of America is on Crain's Chicago 40 Under 40 2014 list". Crain's Chicago Business.
  4. ^ "Sprout Social raises $42 million from Goldman and NEA". Crain's Chicago Business.
  5. ^ Questly, Jenna (May 20, 2018). "What is Sprout Social and how does it work?". doeswhat.com.
  6. ^ Hickins, Michael. "Sprout Social Gets $10 Million From NEA". blogs.wsj.com.
  7. ^ Wilhelm, Alex (February 23, 2011). "Sprout Social snags new funding, continues to shake up social media management". TNW.
  8. ^ Wilhelm, Alex (November 9, 2011). "Sprout Social launches giant new edition of its social media toolkit". TNW.
  9. ^ "Sprout Social Releases New S2 Edition of Social Media Management Platform". www.businesswire.com. November 9, 2011.
  10. ^ Paul, Victoria de (April 13, 2015). "Presentamos Sprout Social en Español y Portugués". sproutsocial.com.
  11. ^ Sprout Social Landscape marketingland.com
  12. ^ G2 crowds top social management tool in consumer satisfaction venturebeat.com March 18, 2015
  13. ^ a b "SMToolbox: Manage Your Social Media with Sprout Social". Social Media Today.
  14. ^ Shandrow, Kim Lachance (November 18, 2013). "10 Questions to Ask When Measuring Your Social Media ROI". Entrepreneur.
  15. ^ "System and methods for generating optimal post times for social networking sites". Google Patents.
  16. ^ "8 Incredible Features of Sprout Social (And How to Try Them". nrmedia.biz).
  17. ^ "Sprout Social Targets 'Twitter Stress' with Suggested Replies". CMSWire.com (Press release).
  18. ^ "Sprout Social Helps Brands Improve Customer Service". www.websitemagazine.com.
  19. ^ "Social Media Tools Review: Sprout Social". peakinboundmarketing.com.
  20. ^ Weinberg, Tamar (March 15, 2016). "Sprout Social's Landscape optimizes images for the social web". MarTech.
  21. ^ "Marketing partners. Sprout Social". Facebookmarketingpartners.com. Retrieved 10 April 2024.
  22. ^ "Twitter Adds Sprout Social To Elite List Of Certified Products". www.businesswire.com. November 13, 2012.
  23. ^ "Having Already Wooed Facebook, Sprout Social Now Gets Twitter Love, Too". Retrieved 10 April 2024.
  24. ^ Wilhelm, Alex (November 13, 2012). "Twitter Knights Sprout Social". TNW.
  25. ^ "Sprout Social Introduces Google+ Pages API Integration". www.businesswire.com. May 21, 2013.
  26. ^ Team, Product (December 17, 2014). "Start Publishing to Your LinkedIn Company Pages from Sprout". Sprout Social.
  27. ^ Sprout Social instagrampartners.com
  28. ^ Connolly, Amanda (June 26, 2015). "Sprout Social introduces Instagram integration to its platform". TNW.
  29. ^ "Sprout Social Partners With Twitter on Customer Care Initiative" (Press release) – via PR Newswire.
  30. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (October 21, 2015). "With Customer Care, Twitter Wants To Sharpen Its Profile As A Platform To Do Business". TechCrunch.
  31. ^ Wilhelm, Alex (May 8, 2012). "Sprout Social and Zendesk Team Up". TNW.
  32. ^ "Sprout Social Integration with UserVoice Helpdesk Connects Social to Support". community.uservoice.com.
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