Sprout Social

Avantages

Sprout Social combines all the tools I expect to find in social media management software - post scheduling, advanced search/listening, analytics - into an easy-to-use dashboard that makes day-to-day management about as simple as possible. I helped introduce the tool to a team of about 100 people, and training others was easy given the straightforward interface. My favorite feature is the Smart Inbox, which lets you keep tabs on every mention/retweet etc. and take action or do further digging into the people who connected with you. I also appreciated the post scheduling tool (especially the embedded image editing and the Sprout Queue with automated scheduling) and reporting that made it easy to pull data and quickly re-share my most effective messages. My experience with the customer support team was very positive - there was always a quick response to my questions about new features or issues I was having.

Inconvénients

While I appreciate the tool's focus on simplicity with a single-column stream, I do sometimes wish that there were an option to customize views to get more information at once. The tool can sometimes require a lot of scrolling. Also, the cost to add new users can be prohibitive - in general this is a much more expensive tool than some others with similar basic features. In my mind it's worth the investment for larger organizations due to its ease of use and reporting features.

Avantages

Sprout Social is the best of the social media management platforms that I've used, and I've used a lot. The interface is minimalist and user-friendly, but still capable of handling virtually any consumer need. Social media is all about communication and, in my opinion, communication should be simple. It should come naturally and it shouldn't feel forced. Sprout Social doesn't get bogged down in the industry jargon and it doesn't overwhelm you with the analytics. It feels like it's designed for someone who wants to communicate with costumers but isn't necessarily savvy in online marketing...and that's a good thing.

Inconvénients

Certain social media channels curb back the exposure and engagement level of posts set up through platforms such as Sprout Social. That's not the software's fault, but it is an unfortunate occurrence that is worth noting.

Avantages

Access control and reporting are great and pretty easy to use The monitoring options are also well done. I also the calendar view.

Inconvénients

While it's great to have the option to post across multiple platforms, it's not very practical as what you enter doesn't display the same way on all social channels. And, not that it's Sprout's fault, but not being able to actually post to Instagram makes the scheduling part less reliable. I often found it easier to just go post things directly on customer accounts.

Avantages

My favorite thing is that SproutSocial stores all of your business' social analytics; when Twitter and Facebook limit your window, your history is always in Sprout, which is awesome to know we can build year-over-year analyses of our channels. The design is great, and it's easy to figure out without any guide.

Inconvénients

I wish posting onto Facebook with SproutSocial looked more refined; it's hard to get it to appear on our Facebook Page without the URL and the link preview showing. But it's a small thing.

Avantages

I used Sprout Social when managing upward of twenty social accounts, and it makes it extremely easy to organize and schedule all of the posts. We were posting multiple times per day, as well as managing any message or comments that came through. Sprout Social a modern, responsive backend that made it very easy to use. It was a much better environment than Hootsuite.

Inconvénients

When we used it, Sprout did not integrate with Instagram and Pinterest. We have clients that use those platforms a lot and it would have been good to be able to schedule everything at one time. It was also was a little pricier than some other solutions.

Avantages

Sprout makes organizing customer inquiries easier and I relied very heavily on queuing upcoming social posts, especially for Twitter where no such functionality existed in the platform.

Inconvénients

It's a little light on practical features in exchange for a lot of bells and whistles I never used. Still, hard to beat for the price.

Avantages

When you work in Social Media, there are so many things to take care of- coordination and user understanding shouldn't be the most difficult part. Sprout Social takes the intensity out of monitoring all accounts and helps make data clear and understandable.

Inconvénients

Really nothing- from Data + analytics to customer support, Sprout does a great job of being an all in one user platform.

Avantages

So easy to use and the inbox was a lifesaver for making sure I responded in a timely message to all incoming messages. IT really makes it easy to be responsive and keep an eye on the conversation around your brand.

Inconvénients

So pricey, it keeps me from being able to refer smaller clients to it. Also, the chrome extension used to be a bit weird and would bounce me out of the web version if I was using the chrome extension at the same time. kind of annoying but not a deal breaker.

Avantages

Sprout Social was a good tool to use when you have multiple posts to schedule. It is also good in that it gives you analytics so it has a lot of the functionalities the platforms have all in one place.

Inconvénients

It is a bit hard to learn. I definitely needed a tutorial by the Sprout team before going in and working in the platform.

Avantages

Sprout Social offers pretty much all of the features you need and want for social media management. It has a mailbox that allows you to manage all mentions, comments, etc. The reports are very extensive –– more extensive than any other platform I've used. If you have a large budget and spare no expense, this is the platform for you.

Inconvénients

The features come at a premium price. It's hard to justify paying so much for the platform when you can get these features for a more reasonable price with other platforms. You might need to use two platforms to get everything offered inside Sprout Social, but it'll likely still cost you less. You also pay per user, and you get no discount for adding multiple users to the platform. You also have to pay extra for things like social listening, which is included on other platforms at no additional cost.

Alternatives envisagées 

Avantages

It's simple, easy to use, and provides the necessary functionality for scheduling content for multiple social accounts. I also love the content that the company puts out in its emails and blogs.

Inconvénients

It's not as advanced as some publishing tools in terms of social listening and analytics.

Avantages

It is nice to be able to track all social media platforms we use from one website, and be able to see analytics for them all. Also nice to be able to schedule all posts from one website.

Inconvénients

Just general usability - it would be confusing and difficult to change a post once it was scheduled to go out and difficult to delete it from the platform once it had gone live.

Avantages

I used Sprout for a short-time while working for a non-profit organization as their marketer. It was very easy to schedule social media posts on various platforms for the week.

Inconvénients

The cost was the largest issue for our organization.

Avantages

Of all the social management platforms, Sprout has one of the friendliest visual identities. I've always enjoyed using it and it handles all the general requirements for a tool of this type well. I recall really enjoying the reports.

Inconvénients

I don't have anything bad to say about this software.

Avantages

Dedicated customer support, and there was a good ability to access sprout social on mobile. I found it good to use in a team atmosphere as it allowed me to set and limit permissions within the account for the different team members. Sprout social also helped me to keep on top of basic web/ social media trends in general. I still reference their free information about social media channel demographics etc.

Inconvénients

The entry price to use sprout might now be a bit steep for smaller businesses when compared to its competitors. The cost was substantially lower in past years which is a troubling trend to get involved with if you have a small or tight budget.
Did not support YouTube or Pinterest
Timeframes can only be set for “weekdays” and “weekends” which might not offer the granular level of scheduling that you might prefer.

Avantages

You can interact with your team and see what they've been working on without leaving the site.

Inconvénients

Pinterest scheduling is just okay. Repinning not an easy option.

Avantages

I was new to social media management when I first encountered Sprout Social, and what I liked most was the ease with which I could watch multiple media channels. Analytics and influence tracking meant I could see the impact of my posts in real time.

Inconvénients

The pricing of Sprout is not very accessible to smaller businesses, but if you can afford it, the quality does make this investment pay off.

Avantages

- Robust toolset to monitor, publish and analyze social media content and social media analytics
- Clean interface and easy-to-understand user experience.

Inconvénients

- Price point is very hard to justify for small teams or low-budget departments
- Web analytics gated behind higher membership tier

Avantages

- Clean, user-friendly, UI which makes a HUGE difference and allows you to do what needs to be done much easier
- They've recently added Instagram scheduling which is awesome
- Great support - they've been a great help whenever we've had any issues

Inconvénients

- There's no free plan and the price for the first plan is a bit expensive so an individual or small business will have to look elsewhere

Avantages

Sprout is very well laid out and has many great features. It allows you to post to social media accounts and connect with the community.

Inconvénients

I have not found and specific cons in Sprout, however, I did find it was a little expensive for small businesses.

Avantages

One of the best tools that does publishing, listening and analytics all in one. Most platforms only do one of those well and Sprout pretty much masters all three.

Inconvénients

Honestly, there's not much. It's not really possible to track stats let's say for a specific event hashtag.

Avantages

I love all the detail that Sprout allows you to get into with social analytics. I also love the scheduling features.

Inconvénients

I just wish it was more affordable. I've now done free trials at two separate companies that have both deemed it too expensive.

Avantages

The software GUI (user interface) is very friendly. You can generate quick figures, like histograms, and find out the peak trend times for words or phrases on social media.

Inconvénients

This software is not conducive to use as a researcher/academic. It is primarily useful for a small business to see the forums and time periods in which market keywords are trending

Avantages

1. You have access to your social media accounts in one place.
2. You can assign tasks to other users part of your team.
3. You can choose which social media platform to focus on.

Inconvénients

1. You can only add 3 platforms.
2. You can't block users on it.
3. Due to the limited range of platforms it gets difficult if you handle more accounts.

Avantages

I liked the ability to assign comments/tasks to other users to manage customer service communications.

Inconvénients

At the time I used it, the publishing calendar wasn't super intuitive. It likely has improved since then.