10 advanced social media copywriting best practices

Social practitioners wear many hats as they balance emerging networks and formats. Yet, strong social media copywriting skills remain the foundation of bringing social content to life.

Whether you’re writing for a massive audience on an established platform or building a niche community on a vertical network, it’s important to refine your copywriting skills to reach your target audience. According to Rachael Goulet, Sprout Social’s Director of Social Media, “Whichever social networks you use, effective writers know how to tailor their writing for different audiences and platforms.”

With the help of generative AI, you can speed up the writing process, so you can focus more on creativity and tailored experiences. Think of it as a writing partner giving you new ideas, or even helping adjust your content for different network character counts.

In this article, we offer 10 actionable copywriting tips for social media with advice from our social team peppered in to help you level-up your skills and engage your audience in meaningful ways.

Know your audience, brand voice and competitors

Before putting your hypothetical pen to paper, it’s important to have a foundation that guides your approach. Social media copywriting varies greatly by industry and brand. What works for a hamburger juggernaut will likely fall flat for a government agency. Consult the competitive analysis and research you’ve done on your audience to inform your copywriting strategy. Answer key questions like:

• What kind of content does our audience want from our brand? How do they expect us to sound?
• How do our posts address customer pain points?
• What niches or subcultures does our brand resonate with?
• What are competitors doing right? What are they missing?
• What tone are competitors using? What does their voice sound like?
• How’s our audience reacting to competitors’ content?

Sprout’s competitor reports and listening tools expedite this research by identifying what kind of content works best on social for your audience and industry. They enable you to track your competitors’ key metrics like audience growth, engagement and post volume for each network, then compare them against your profiles so you can benchmark your performance. They also empower you to dig into trending conversations, and gain consumer insights that’ll help you differentiate your brand.

This research also informs your brand voice and helps you refine your unique style guide. Carve out an authentic, distinct voice that’ll help you improve brand recognition, build loyalty and differentiate you from the competition.

Your social media style guide should encompass all things copywriting—from grammar, mechanics and tone to how to approach writing for different platforms, audiences and formats. For example, the Sprout Social style guide, “Seeds,” provides specific direction for everything from embodying the Sprout voice to writing for different channels to describing the technical details of our product.

Be sure to consult teams across your org, like your creative and strategy teams, to ensure your voice accurately reflects your brand’s values and goals. Invest time into building a guide upfront to help you streamline and standardize copywriting in the future. Read our post that delves into creating elevated style guides to get started.

With this direction, you’ll know how best to embed your brand voice into your social media copywriting while meeting audience expectations. And you’ll be able to apply these tips for social media copywriting more successfully.

1. Create post templates

If you’re constantly scrambling for new post ideas, try turning your best performing posts into templates. By using a tried-and-true post formula, you’ll save time and replicate your success without recreating the wheel.

Let’s look at Paramount+ posts as proof this method works. First, as you can see on X (formerly Twitter), the streaming network hooks their audience with an engaging question or statement, then pairs the copy with branded hashtags, compelling calls to action (CTAs) and video teasers of their upcoming shows.

On TikTok, Paramount+ uses a slightly different formula, while maintaining their templated approach. They post nostalgic video clips from famous old shows streaming on their platform, and pair them with copy relevant to today’s pop culture.

To create your template, identify which of your posts generated the most awareness or engagement. With an analytics tool like Sprout’s Post Performance Report, you get a unified view of all your social networks, so you can see which posts performed best with your audience across channels. Narrow in on the key components of your best performing posts, and use them to build your templates.

2. Recycle your content

Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose. As Olivia Jepson, Sprout’s Senior Social Media Strategist shares, “Not everything needs to be net new. Consider creatively repurposing content that others teams in your organization have created for social or putting a new spin on social content that has performed well in the past to fuel your calendar.” When copywriting for social, identify successful content your brand has created for other channels, and tailor the message for social networks.

For example, take an article that resonates with your audience and break it down in several different social posts.

• Pull a stand-out quote or hot take from the article and use it as a post.
• Write a one-sentence summary of the article, and share a link to it in your comment section or bio.
• Share data visualizations from the piece as a carousel paired with key takeaways.

We used our report about 2024 Content Benchmarks to generate each of these posts.

With Sprout, you can easily repurpose your content without leaving the platform. Track your top-performing content in our analytics, and then use Suggestions by AI Assist within our Publishing tool to generate new variations of your post text.

3. Lead with a hook

Staying on-brand doesn’t have to be boring. In fact, your copy should entice your audience to keep reading. Don’t be afraid to say something spicy or outlandish—as long as it’s relevant to the things your audience cares about. Just beware crossing the line into clickbait territory, and stay authentic to your brand voice (see step #2 for reference).

Greg Rokisky, Sprout’s Senior Social Media Strategist, advises, “When it comes to writing social hooks, swing big! Ask questions, spill a hot take, utilize a trending angle and give your audience something to agree or disagree with you about.” Crafting a hook with these tips in mind will help you generate more engagement on your posts. As Greg says, “When in doubt write through a lens of empathy and authenticity. Ask yourself: What would make me want to stick around and read a post? Or engage in a meaningful way?”

To test what kind of hooks make a splash with your audience, use our creative testing template.

4. Write with accessibility in mind

Social media copywriting with accessibility in mind creates an inclusive experience. Make sure accessibility is part of your overall strategy, and apply it to your social content—from copy to images to videos.

Here are a few best practices to keep in mind to make your social copy accessible, especially for those using a screen reader:

• Make hashtags easier to read by using CamelCase, i.e. capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag. It should be #TeamSprout rather than #teamsprout.
• Avoid all caps. Using all caps might make screen readers interpret the word as an acronym, disrupting the content experience.
• Spell out acronyms the first time you mention them to avoid confusion.
• Write in pain language. Avoid jargon and overly complicated words to make your content more accessible for those new to your industry, non-native speakers or people with cognitive disabilities.
• Avoid run-on sentences. Keep your copy short and concise.
• Present the most important information first. This is helpful for accessibility, and for writing more engaging copy.
• Include @ mentions and emojis at the end of your post.
• Use special characters in moderation. Screen readers know to not read all special characters aloud, like ampersands. But too many special characters in your text can result in a confusing experience.

Remember to always add alt text to your images as well. This helps users with vision impairments enjoy the full experience of your post. Writing a short, clear description of what’s depicted in the image enables screen readers to describe the image. Sprout’s Generate by AI Assist can do the describing for you by generating alt text for your post images.

@unsightlyopinions

Reading/Replying to your comments blind. #blind #disability #fyp #dyk #tech #blind #disabilityawareness #didyouknow #technology #read #blindgirl #howto #comment #reading #screenreader #techtok #technology #mylife

♬ original sound – Unsightly Opinions

5. Use active voice

Passive voice clouds the meaning of your copy. Use an active voice to craft concise and actionable social content.

For example, take this sentence: “Diligent customer service professionals can’t be replaced by robots.” Now, let’s transform it with an active voice: “No robot can replace a diligent customer service professional.” The verdict? Active voice is clearer and will grab your audience’s attention.

To edit your social copy quickly, use a free tool that detects passive voice like the Hemingway Editor.

6. Experiment with longer posts

Social media copy is often short, sweet and to the point. Network character restrictions and consumer behavior shaped social into a fast-paced channel. But there are some platform-specific cases when long form posts drive more engagement.

For example, on a channel like LinkedIn, your brand can use long form posts to build your thought leadership and credibility. LinkedIn audiences are hungry for knowledge and, in recent years, have started blending their professional announcements with personal posts. They’re willing to invest time into reading compelling content, especially if it leans into human connection.

Greg advises brands to experiment with incorporating more long-form content into their engagement strategy. But he cautions not to overdo it. “Know the story you’re trying to tell, and don’t overcomplicate it. Address your audience’s pain points and offer solutions, while balancing between just engaging with them on social and directing them to a call to action.”

7. Test CTAs throughout your content

When copywriting for social media, it’s best to mix up your CTAs. Avoid too many sales-driven CTAs in a row, and test which phrases generate the most engagement from your audience. Consult our list of example CTAs to get started.

Tailor your CTAs to the customer journey and your content funnel. For example, in some cases, your CTA could be a call to engage on social: “Let us know what you think in the comments section.” Other times, your CTA might drive people to your website: “Click the link in the bio to shop our latest collection.”

CTAs should also vary by platform. While sharing a link works well on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, it’s best practice on Instagram to drive your followers to click the link in your bio instead. Pay attention to platform nuances like this that can have a big impact on your post performance and conversion rate.

8. Embrace the rise of AI in copywriting

Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t going to take your job. Instead, embracing generative AI can make you a more productive marketer and copywriter. It can speed up your content development process and help you overcome writer’s block. Try inputting the link to your brand style guide (from step #2) and other examples of your brand’s content for the best copy outputs.

Of course, AI isn’t a flawless solution. While it can automate workflows and kickstart brainstorming, a human touch is needed to make sure your copy is appropriate for audiences.

Ultimately, AI is meant to be a complementary tool, which is why Sprout uses it to empower your team to do their best work. With our AI Assist, get help generating post text and image alt text, so your posts remain fresh and accessible. Within our Smart Inbox, use Enhance by AI Assist to automatically adjust the tone of your messages so your response always hits just right.

9. Analyze your metrics

The art of social media copywriting doesn’t end when you hit publish. If you take a “post and ghost” approach, you’ll miss critical audience insights that can help you improve your copywriting skills for your unique audience. After your content goes live, monitor how your followers react. Reflect on your performance by asking questions like:

• Which topics generate the most awareness?
• Do certain post lengths garner more engagement than others?
• How well do certain CTAs drive conversions compared to others?

Use the findings to evolve your copywriting style and iterate on your content strategy. By using tools in Sprout’s Analytics suite, you can quickly access these metrics in real time. For example, you can use the Tag Performance Report to compare different CTA styles across platforms, and adjust your copy accordingly.

10. Invest in copywriting tools and training

Finally, strive to always be growing and improving as a writer. Copywriting is a skill that can be honed and tested. With the multitude of tools and services out there, it’s easier than ever to continuously improve.

Here are some of our favorite social copywriting resources:

• Social media management with generative AI: Sprout Social
• Newsletter: VeryGoodCopy
• Book: Everybody Writes

Elevate your approach to copywriting for social media

Save these tips to keep the latest social copywriting best practices top of mind. With some research, experimentation and refinement, you can evolve your copywriting skills and create a standout social presence. And with the help of AI, you can do so quickly so you can keep your focus on creating personalized experiences on each network. Start optimizing your copywriting process and tracking the performance of your creative prose with a free 30-day trial of Sprout Social.

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Facebook monitoring made easy: A guide for social marketers

With over three billion active users, Facebook remains a big deal for brands as it’s one of the few platforms that offers such a massive and diverse audience.

With feedback and communication tools like ratings, reviews and Messenger, the platform helps brands, like you, to build trust with their audience and start conversations that lead to sales. Facebook analytics also enables social media marketers to dive deeper into content performance and engagement to see what’s working and what isn’t.

However, keeping track of your Facebook likes, comments and messages manually can quickly become a full-time job without some help. But thanks to social media data analysis tools, Facebook monitoring has become more effective than ever.

This article will highlight the benefits of Facebook monitoring and best practices to ensure you do it correctly. Plus, get recommendations for using Sprout Social and other tools to streamline the process.

What is Facebook monitoring?

Facebook monitoring is the process of tracking and responding to audience interactions with your brand on the platform. These engagements include wall posts, comments on posts or ads, page mentions, Messenger conversations and reviews.

For social media marketers, Facebook monitoring allows you to keep a pulse check on your brand. It helps you better understand how people feel about your brand and quickly respond to feedback. This timely engagement can deepen your audience’s connection to your brand and make them feel seen, heard and valued.

Benefits of Facebook monitoring for brands

Think of Facebook monitoring as a watchdog for your brand’s Page. It helps you spot trends or potential issues and respond to them quickly. For example, if you’re getting a lot of positive comments on a particular post, that’s a sign it’s resonating with your audience, and you should look deeper into why it’s so popular.

On the other hand, if you’re getting an influx of negative ratings and reviews, monitoring helps you respond quickly and prevent minor issues from becoming crises.

Best practices for Facebook monitoring

Monitoring Facebook messages and comments may seem pretty straightforward at first. However, if you want to make the most of your efforts, here are some best practices to remember.

Set clear goals and objectives

What do you want to achieve with Facebook monitoring? Do you want to improve customer service by responding to questions, concerns or complaints faster? Boost engagement by ensuring your team responds to all Post comments? Do you want to improve brand sentiment by tracking the ratio of positive to negative comments and reviews? Setting clear goals and objectives will give your monitoring efforts direction and focus and connect them to your overarching Facebook marketing strategy.

Choose the right Facebook monitoring tool

Whether you use Facebook’s native monitoring features or a third-party tool like Sprout Social, a Facebook monitoring platform will help streamline your efforts and boost efficiency. Just consider your needs and goals to pick the best one for your brand.

Do you have a large social media marketing team? Consider choosing a platform with robust collaboration and approval features. Want to increase productivity? An all-in-one tool that offers end-to-end management and Facebook analytics tools and that integrates with your other social channels will save you time and energy.

Develop a monitoring strategy

So, you’ve established your goals and objectives and settled on a tool. Now, you must determine how exactly you want to respond to engagements. For example, if you have multiple team members, how do you ensure they know who responds to which message? Also, how will you ensure your responses are on-brand and timely?

Creating a monitoring strategy will get everyone on the same page about how your brand responds to engagements. Key considerations should include defining responsibilities, approval workflows and recommended response times.

Monitor relevant keywords

To further streamline your monitoring efforts, use your monitoring tool’s Tagging features to track the most relevant keywords to prioritize messages. While your brand name and its variations are a give-in, some other keywords to consider are:

• Brand product names
• Brand hashtags
• Campaign hashtags
• Industry hashtags, if applicable
• C-suite names if they’re active online or an industry thought leader
• All the above repeated for a competitor if you want to conduct a marketing competitor analysis

For example, sportswear brand Nike (or a competitor) would likely track their #WinningIsntForEveryone Paris 2024 Paralympics campaign hashtag to see how their audience is engaging with the posts.

Use analytics to track results

Finally, use analytics to see how well your Facebook monitoring strategy is working. Use sentiment analysis to see if brand perception skews more positively or negatively. Facebook audience insights will also reveal if engagement rates have improved since you started monitoring. Facebook listening will show you what content resonates with your audience the most.

How to use Sprout Social for Facebook monitoring

Sprout Social has many features to ensure you never miss a comment or message. Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough of the key capabilities to use for Facebook monitoring.

Step 1: Get familiar with the Smart Inbox.

Sprout’s Smart Inbox feature unifies all of your messages, mentions, comments and reviews into a single unified dashboard. It can also track brand keywords, search results and hashtag campaigns in real-time.

It has three main components: the Left Bar, messages stream and Filter Menu. The Left bar is a navigation bar that allows you to toggle between different Inbox Views. For example, All Messages contains all the messages from all the profiles you’ve connected with Sprout, whereas Completed Messages shows messages that already had an action performed.

Step 2: Respond to messages

To respond to a message from Facebook, click the arrow icon in the bottom right of the message. You have the option to take the conversation from public to private by clicking Switch to Private Message (unless the user’s Facebook settings don’t allow you to).

You can also hide comments by tapping the three-dot icon and clicking Hide on Facebook. This feature helps protect your audience and brand image from spam or insensitive content.

Step 3: Use Case Management to resolve customer issues faster

Use Message Actions to categorize messages and track what’s complete and what requires further action. Save messages to come back to later, or mark them as complete. You can also categorize messages as positive, negative or neutral to better track your overall brand sentiment.

Plus, use Case Management to create cases for more complex issues that need attention. You can pass the message on to another team member to respond to it–without losing context from the original conversation.

Step 4: Use Sprout’s Task and Tagging features

Use our Task and Tagging features to assign messages to specific team members and tag the messages with keywords to track them later. Tags allow you to associate incoming or outgoing messages with your brand’s product launch, campaign or other initiative.

Step 5: Use Sprout’s collaboration features to improve workflows

Create Message Approval Workflows to ensure every response meets your brand’s standards. Sprout’s collaboration features allow you to define specific publishing and approval abilities for certain team members. Once enabled, users can submit messages for approval. This action will trigger a notification to the team member with approval permission so they can review and respond promptly.

Want to give Sprout Social a try? Sign up for our 30-day free trial.

8 Facebook monitoring tools

There’s a Facebook monitoring tool for every brand and budget. You just need to find the one that works for you. Here are some of the most popular platforms on the market.

1. Sprout Social

Sprout Social’s Facebook management tools help you stay on top of everything. The Smart Inbox pulls comments, reviews‌ and Messenger conversations into a central dashboard to review and respond to them in one place. Our social CRM provides conversation history and customer details, to personalize responses.

Listening features like Query Builder and Alerts will notify you as soon as you get a brand mention or a spike in message volume. Plus, collaboration tools like Tagging, task routing and approval workflows prevent duplicate efforts and keep everything organized, efficient and on-brand.

See the Sprout Social difference for yourself and try us for free for 30 days.

2. Brand24

Brand24 is an AI-powered social listening tool that tracks mentions across social media,
news, blogs, videos, forums, podcasts, reviews‌ and more. Its Facebook integration allows brands to track public mentions like posts, comments and reviews. It also has customized alerts to help users respond to mentions quickly. Beyond monitoring, it also has reach and sentiment analysis, competitive analysis reports and personalized recommendations with its AI-Brand Assistant tool.

3. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a social media management tool that provides scheduling, content creation, analytics and social listening capabilities. Users can create feeds to monitor keywords, hashtags and all public Facebook updates. They can also create these feeds to monitor their accounts based on a theme or activity. Plus, like Sprout, their social media inbox lets you respond to comments and DMs in one place.

4. Buffer

Buffer has a unified dashboard where you can see all your unanswered comments from across your social media channels in one place. It highlights the most important comments and informs you if the post has questions, negative sentiment or comments about a purchase. Their keyboard hotkey and smart emoji features also help users quickly respond to messages and engage with their audience.

5. Mention

Mention helps users keep track of social media conversations, including Facebook mentions. In real-time, users can monitor what’s said about a company, including its products, competitors‌ and customers. They also have a keyword tracking function that allows users to Monitor, measure and engage with opinions shared about specific terms.

6. Awario

Awario is a brand management platform that tracks conversations across social media, news, blogs, videos, forums and reviews. The tool’s media monitoring helps users monitor all relevant conversations on Facebook by tracking keywords and mentions. It also offers access to historical Facebook mention data and sentiment analysis.

7. Keyhole

Keyhole is a social media management tool with publishing, listening, analytics and historical insights capabilities. It can track any public Facebook page, yours or competitors,’ and provide in-depth performance and comparison insights. It also has hashtag and keyword tracking and sentiment analysis.

8. Meta Business Suite

Meta Business Suite is a centralized space for Meta users to manage their Facebook, Instagram, Messenger posts, ads and communications and track their content performance. Its Inbox feature lets you see all of your Messenger, Instagram Direct messages, Facebook and Instagram comments in one place. You can filter messages by platform, respond to them directly from the Inbox, organize and assign them to people to address as well.

Build a more engaged audience with Facebook monitoring

Facebook monitoring is more than keeping an eye on likes and comments. It’s about understanding what your audience cares about—from your brand to your industry as a whole. It’s also about how you respond to these conversations.

The right tools and strategy will help you react quickly to feedback, improve customer relationships‌ and avoid potential issues before they escalate. Want to take your Facebook game even further? Learn how to get more out of your social presence with our tips for increasing Facebook engagement.

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The complete guide to social media community management

Social media community management and owned community management are like different branches of the same tree.

Both require a keen understanding of a target audience, including their interests, goals and needs for support. The main difference is, owned communities allow for full control over the rules of engagement. On social, you must adapt to the engagement standards of each specific network.

That means working across different platforms, managing multiple conversations at once and staying up-to-date on network updates and trends. In today’s new social media landscape, engagement is just as important as entertainment, and for good reason. Active social media communities build hype around a brand, providing organic amplification for launches and promotional activities, alike.

In this article, we share how you can create more impactful fan experiences through community management on social media.

What is social media community management?

Social media community management is the process of engaging audiences across social media networks to increase brand loyalty and grow authentic connections. This function oversees the one-to-one or one-to-few interactions that strengthen relationships and promote brand advocacy.

Nearly every social media network—Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), LinkedIn, Twitch, Discord—has features that support creating and maintaining active communities. A social media community management strategy defines the cross-network approach a business takes managing conversations with brand advocates.

That said, not all communities are created equal. You should refine tactics based on where the community lives to yield the best results.

Bonus Resource: We surveyed over 4,500 consumers to find out what users actually want from brands on social, and how their responses differ from network to network. Find out what they had to say in the 2024 Social Media Content Strategy Report.

Get the data report

What is a social media community manager?

Social media community managers are responsible for engaging audiences across networks to further develop a community. At a high level, this may sound like a social media manager’s responsibility, but there are distinct differences that separate the two roles.

For example, you might see Oatly’s Social Engagement & Community Growth Specialist, Paula Perez, in an Oatly TikTok from time to time, but she doesn’t take part in content planning.

“I’ll star in a TikTok on occasion because I’m comfortable in front of a camera, but I don’t plan or create any of the content that goes on our social media profiles,” said Perez during a previous interview. “Our creative and social teams work together on that.”

What are common use cases for social media community management?

No day in the life of a social media community manager is ever the same. That said, certain core responsibilities consistently shape their role. These include:

• Customer support: Providing timely and helpful responses to customer inquiries and concerns on social media.
• Audience engagement: Fostering meaningful interactions with followers through content, conversations‌ and campaigns.
• Feedback aggregation: Gathering and analyzing customer opinions and insights to inform business decisions.
• Lead generation: Identifying and nurturing potential customers through social media engagement.
• Crisis management: Addressing and mitigating negative situations or PR issues that arise on social media.

Why is social media community management so important?

You can’t overstate the role of community management in social media. It’s a unique discipline—separate from creative production or content strategy—that can create value for both B2C and B2B brands. When done well, it becomes a powerful tool for boosting brand perception. Here’s how:

It increases brand visibility

Social media algorithms are notoriously mysterious, and what works today may not work tomorrow.

Building an active community is the best way to grow your reach when the algorithm works in your favor, and to maintain it when it doesn’t. Actively participating in conversations on social media pushes your brand past the boundaries of your owned profile, introducing it to new potential fans.

Perez says these efforts helped establish and build Oatly’s brand presence across the social media landscape. “Whenever I tell people I work at Oatly, they always tell me they see our page in comments sections all over the place.

It provides insight into audience preferences

A social media community is a goldmine of audience insights. By tapping into sentiment, pain points‌ and preferences, you can make informed decisions about product development, marketing strategies‌ and overall business direction.

For example, Salesforce aggregates data and audience feedback using Sprout Social to learn more about their audience preferences. According to Max Benesi, Salesforce’s Associate Manager, Social Media and Community, it’s one of the best ways to tap into the expertise of their community of highly engaged Trailblazers—brand advocates who are committed to innovating with Salesforce.

“They’re very honest—they will tell us what they like and don’t like,” Benesi said. “We use their feedback to inform our content creation.”

Bonus Resource: Discover how Salesforce 10x’d their community management efficiency (and how you can too!)

Read the case study

It protects and enhances brand reputation

According to a Q1 2024 Sprout Social Pulse Survey, two of the top three factors that have the greatest impact on brand trust are how fast a brand responds to their audience on social media and how personalized those responses are.

By investing in community management and prioritizing timely, personalized interactions, brands can cultivate trust and turn their social media presence into a powerful engine for growth and advocacy.

It strengthens customer relationships

One-on-one interactions in a community setting can have a ripple effect, strengthening customer relationships far beyond the initial exchange. Remember: For every one person who voices a question, there are probably quite a few individuals who have the same question but haven’t spoken up.

In Sprout’s owned community, The Arboretum, we created a designated space for platform questions and feedback. No question is too big or small, and we work with our team of experts to ensure each customer is addressed in a timely fashion. These efforts create a bi-directional feedback loop that strengthens relationships at scale.

How to build a social media community management strategy

Successful social media community management may appear effortless, but it’s a carefully cultivated skill. Behind every well-crafted response lies a strategy honed to build relationships and drive results.

Ready to elevate your brand’s community management game? Here are some actionable steps to get you started:

1. Set goals for your strategy

Setting effective goals for your social media community management strategy requires striking the right balance between ambition and realism. Begin by grounding your objectives in the broader business goals, whether it’s boosting brand awareness, driving conversions or fostering customer loyalty.

Next, translate these business objectives into specific, measurable social media KPIs. For example, if your goal is to foster customer loyalty, you may want to prioritize increasing positive brand sentiment.

On the other hand, if you want to drive conversions, consider setting a target for proactive engagements on product-related content to drive potential customers further down the sales funnel.

2. Identify where your target audience is most active

While owned communities offer a focused space for interaction, social media community management requires a broader approach across various platforms your audience frequents.

To kickstart your strategy, begin by identifying where your target audience is most engaged. This focused approach allows you to tailor your content and voice to resonate with them, maximizing reach and fostering authentic relationships.

Remember, quality trumps quantity. Don’t overextend your resources by trying to be everywhere at once. Use a social media management tool (like Sprout!) to pinpoint the platforms generating the highest engagement, and prioritize your efforts there. This data-driven approach ensures you’re investing your time and energy where it matters most.

3. Establish a social media moderation strategy

Establishing a clear moderation strategy is like setting the ground rules for a great party—it ensures everyone feels safe, respected‌ and has a good time. By proactively addressing negativity and promoting positive interactions, you’ll cultivate a thriving community where your brand can shine.

If you haven’t yet defined your social media moderation approach, consider these key aspects:

• Brand voice and community culture: What kind of environment do you want to foster? Do you want to position your brand as a helpful expert, a playful companion‌ or something else entirely? Your moderation style should align with your brand’s voice and the desired community culture.
• Response protocols: How will you handle negative feedback or customer complaints? Establish clear processes for timely and empathetic responses.
• Crisis management: Develop a plan for dealing with trolls, inflammatory comments‌ or potential PR crises. Define escalation paths and empower your team to take action when necessary.

Remember, moderation isn’t just about policing; it’s about fostering an environment where genuine connections flourish. By establishing clear guidelines and consistently enforcing them, you protect your brand’s reputation while empowering your audience to engage in meaningful conversations.

4. Measure your results and optimize

Measuring your community management efforts isn’t just about creating reports; it’s about proving value and securing buy-in from marketing leadership. By tracking key metrics like engagement rate, sentiment analysis‌ and conversions, you can directly tie your work to broader business goals.

But the true power of data lies in its ability to refine your strategy. Analyze audience behavior to gain insight into their content, engagement and product preferences. From there, brainstorm ways to make improvements. This iterative process ensures your strategy remains effective and evolves alongside both your audience’s needs and your brand’s objectives.

5 social media community management best practices and tips

Brands stand to gain a lot by prioritizing community management in social media. That said, your approach has to be consistent to reap those benefits. It takes more than just a few likes and comments to create lifetime fans.

Use these five tactics to get the most out of your social media community management strategy.

1. Reward your superfans

As you grow your social media community, you’ll begin to notice some friendly faces. These are budding brand evangelists. Getting them to that stage requires thoughtful engagement.

The first step is identifying your superfans. Look for people who drive community conversations forward by engaging with your social content: it might be someone that always tags themselves at your location on Instagram, or maybe they’re the first to comment on posts in your Facebook Group.

From there, show them your appreciation. Sprout’s community team knows that even the simplest gifts can be a major relationship builder.

“Our community doesn’t owe us anything—it’s on us to keep members who are willing to participate engaged,” says Jonathan Zuluaga, Sprout’s Senior Community Strategist. “We always reward people for their effort to show we appreciate the value of their time.”

2. Prepare to answer difficult questions

If you’re going to do community management, you have to do it all the way. That means engaging with it all—the good, the bad and the ugly.

Don’t worry. Engaging with a rogue hater doesn’t have to be stress-inducing if you don’t let it be. Oatly’s figured out how to make it fun.

“We try to be really responsive, no matter what,” says Perez. “We even have some fun with people who give us criticism. We know we won’t convince that person to love Oatly, but there’s also a chance someone else might see our response and think it’s funny.”

Maintaining this responsiveness means prepping your team to answer the hard questions. At Oatly, this looks like regular knowledge shares on issues relevant to their product and mission. “We get a lot of questions about niche ingredients, packaging, our commitment to sustainability—we’re given the resources needed to speak on all of it.”

3. Prioritize proactive engagement

Brands should strive for balance between the reactive and proactive elements of their social media community management strategy. One reinforces the strength of the community, and the other grows it in size.

If you look at the comment section of any viral TikTok, you’ll likely see a few brands chiming in.

This style of proactive marketing—an audience engagement strategy that uses conversations around brands or industries that don’t explicitly mention a brand handle—is a masterful way to increase reach and expand your community. A top comment on a viral post gets a healthy fraction of all those impressions.

4. Establish a content creation feedback loop

While social media community managers might not be directly responsible for content creation, their role is integral to a successful content strategy.

By closely collaborating with the creative team, community managers can provide invaluable insights gleaned from their interactions with the audience. This includes identifying trends, potential brand advocates‌ and opportunities for engagement, helping shape content that resonates with the target audience.

This symbiotic relationship fosters a cohesive brand experience for the community, where the creative vision aligns seamlessly with the real-time conversations happening on social media. When creative teams, community and social media managers are aligned, the result is a more consistent brand experience for the fans on the other end of the message.

5. Empower your team with the right management tools

Social media is an ever-expanding frontier. Conversations about your brand or industry can—and will—pop up anywhere. If you want to keep up, you need to set your team up with community management tools.

Sprout Social is designed to handle the evolving needs of social media community management teams. Our platform offers a suite of tools designed to provide visibility into fan activity across networks, including:

• The Smart Inbox: Unify your social channels into a single stream to monitor inbound messages, tags, keyword use and more.
• Social listening: Act faster on customer-informed engagement opportunities, whether your brand is directly mentioned or not.

• CRM Integrations: Link inbound messages to database contact profiles in Salesforce, Marketo or Microsoft Dynamics 365 to provide superior customer service.

3 social media community management examples from real brands

Thriving brand communities bring people together over a shared connection to a company’s mission, vision or goals. Learn how to translate your business needs into a thriving fan base with these three social media community management examples:

1. Oatly

Oatly started their TikTok account in October 2022. Less than six months later, they have more than 600,000 followers and 8.5 million Likes on the platform.

“We leverage a lot of the organic conversations that happen about Oatly on TikTok,” says Perez. “It’s given people a new way to communicate with us. There are so many of our fans on TikTok that we weren’t able to reach until now. It’s a new touchpoint that proves the value of being where your fans are.”

The brand’s approach to social media community management helps grow their account by capitalizing on every opportunity to showcase their personality. In some situations, the comments they leave on other accounts receive the same amount of attention as their own posts.

For example, when UK comedian Simon David shared a video poking fun at the Oatly theme song printed on the side of their cartons, the brand was quick to act in the comments.

“Our comment got around more than 20,000 likes—almost 30% of the total likes on the video. It was a really fun interaction and it wouldn’t have happened if we weren’t keeping an eye on our brand mentions.”

2. Texas A&M University

Texas A&M University is home to a large community of students, teachers, staff, parents and alumni. Some of these individuals still call College Station home, but many more have ventured beyond campus limits to start their post-grad lives.

There’s a ton to borrow from the Texas A&M playbook. But, if you’re going to replicate any of their successes, you’ve got to start with their approach to social media accessibility.

“Creating accessible content has been a priority of our team for several years, and things like including image descriptions are just part of our workflow,” says Krista Berend, Director of Social Media at Texas A&M.

By prioritizing accessibility, the Texas A&M social team creates an inclusive community that caters to all Aggies, no matter their physical or cognitive abilities. Berend and her team use Sprout Social to ensure their content creates an inclusive experience for all Aggies, not just some.

“With the software we were using before, we had to do all of that natively across social channels,” explains Berend. “With Sprout we can do all of that within the platform, which makes our workflow so much easier. Plus, as social channels add more accessibility features, we’ve noticed that Sprout almost immediately has those in the back end for us to use.”

3. Lyft

Lyft’s approach to social media community management is a consumer and marketer favorite, because they respond to everything—complaints, jokes, random anecdotes about Lyft experiences. If you mention their brand online (with or without a tag), chances are they’ll be in your replies shortly.

These efforts humanize the brand by reinforcing their voice. A quick scroll through the Replies tab of the Lyft Twitter account surfaces countless examples of the fun and irreverent personality they’re known for.

Cracking jokes and laughing alongside their fans gives them the brand authenticity needed to earn loyal fans in a crowded market.

Strengthen your social media community management strategy

A solid approach to social media community management can bolster organic reach, create brand ambassadors and further cement your brand’s personality in an authentic, human way.

To create audience connections that drive ROI, check out this guide to building a solid community management strategy. It’s filled with practical examples that’ll show you how to put everything you just read into action.

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How we’re creating a culture of AI across Sprout’s marketing org

Marketers: AI isn’t necessarily coming to replace you. But if you want to be the most skilled and well-equipped marketer in your field, you need to stay ahead of the curve with a strong command of how to use AI within your function. That’s the AI-powered culture we’re building at Sprout Social.

Let’s be clear: AI and automation are, and will be, transformational to the art and science of marketing. But at this early stage of the AI revolution, we are approaching AI as a powerful booster that builds on existing strengths, as well as an assistant that shields individuals from tedious tasks—preserving time and energy to enhance creative, strategic work. We want our team to have the AI skills and confidence required to augment our capabilities, strategy and planning, so we can operate as a world-class team and create a magnetic culture.

To do this, we need to be agile and move quickly so we can adapt to the lightning pace of AI innovation. Yet, if we move too fast, we risk creating silos, running afoul of legal and ethical challenges, complicating our tech stack and failing to reach our business goals. That’s why we created our Marketing AI Steering Group—a cross-functional team dedicated to driving strategic, responsible and ethical adoption of AI technology. We are accelerating AI adoption across our team, but doing it in a thoughtful–dare I say mindful—way.

Let’s dive into how AI proficiency, wide-scale adoption and intentionality helps our team anticipate customer needs and empowers them to become best-in-class marketers.

Why marketers need to be using AI

Marketing teams who aren’t getting serious about AI are already lagging far behind. Investments in AI are crucial to making the funnel more performant and making marketers more productive, and that’s just the beginning. It’s estimated that incorporating AI could increase corporate business profits by up to $4.4 trillion annually. The more marketers harness it, the more positively it reflects on individual and company-wide performance.

The Social Media Productivity Report found 63% of social media marketers agree manual tasks prevent them from doing high impact work—reinforcing that many marketers are bogged down by tasks that could easily be handled by AI. Another 75% of marketers agree AI is an important factor in how well they can do their job, and 93% believe AI has a positive impact on their output.

That’s how we see AI at Sprout: a force multiplier that significantly increases the time our team members have for their most critical work.

For example, we use tools like Writer to speed up case study creation—what used to be a weeks-long process became a one-day task. We also use Sprout’s AI Assist capabilities to draft social media posts and generate alt text faster, and use our AI-driven Social Listening to source performance insights and business intelligence in seconds.

Why we need an AI steering committee

Given the promise of AI, it can be tempting to move too quickly onboarding new tools and rebuilding workflows. According to The 2023 State of Social Media Report, 98% of business leaders agree companies need to better understand the potential of AI technology for long-term success. Introducing new tools on a case-by-case basis without vetting compatibility with your existing tech stack actually creates more inefficiency.

Picture this familiar scenario: Your team is eager to start using AI. The most commercially well-known solutions are content creation tools, so that’s where they start. Without a clear, centralized plan, content creation becomes your only AI use case. If AI does happen to permeate other departments, it becomes splintered and siloed—barely scratching the surface of what’s possible and causing collisions between departments.

Using AI for content creation is great, but rather than only thinking of AI as a solution to tactical work, you should use it to solve large-scale challenges, like how to best-position your product. You can use AI insights to better understand how your audience uses your product or service, and then use that to inform your messaging and positioning. Which will then cascade down to many other areas of marketing, including your content strategy, demand generation tactics and more.

Source: GrowthPath Partners

That’s where Sprout’s Marketing AI Steering Group comes in. This committee drives consistent use of AI to tackle the core of our most pressing marketing opportunities, like with our product, messaging and customer journey creation. The group provides guidance on how and where AI should be used in our department, while ensuring our company doesn’t overbuy technology or overcomplicate our martech stack.

The committee, in collaboration with the legal and IT teams, prioritizes which use cases should be explored and facilitates scaled learning and iteration. This empowers us to bring AI not just to individual teams, but to the entire marketing department—and, in some cases, to the entire company.

Answering the ethical questions

The steering group addresses governance, compliance and ethical concerns. They set the standard for adhering to legal requirements and maintaining transparency about AI-generated content (even when it’s not legally required).

For example, we know it wouldn’t be ethical to try and pass an AI-generated blog post off as written by a human. That would be misleading to our audience, and a violation of our internal AI policy, even if it wasn’t expressly illegal.

Regardless of what stage of adoption we’re in with a particular AI tool, compliance is always top of mind. From outlining the data security considerations and requirements during the exploratory phase to fully integrating compliance into our operations, responsible use should be a throughline.

How the steering committee drives AI adoption

Selecting the right technology is essential, but an AI strategy that doesn’t address people, culture and processes will collapse. People are the most crucial factor in the AI equation. At Sprout, we’ve developed ongoing training and built-in rituals that create new team dynamics and encourage employee experimentation–but with the appropriate guardrails in place.

Our process for rolling out new tools

First, we pilot all of our AI betas. We have a preselected list of marketing AI early adopters (some are on the committee) who pressure test all of our new tools to see how they might coexist with current tools and processes. From there, we train the entire marketing team on the new tool—sharing effective prompts, workflows, best practices and early successes.

We regularly encourage collaboration and exploration by prompting discussion in our Slack channels (we have one dedicated to AI tools). Our committee members also consult on cross-functional projects that would be enriched by the use of the new AI tool.

To build momentum around AI innovation, we share wins from specific tools in our marketing all-hands meetings and other lunch-and-learn-style syncs. We also use this time as a chance to introduce higher level training (sometimes including outside experts) to accelerate upskilling and source feedback that shapes our culture.

Creating an AI culture across the company

Fostering a culture of AI within marketing (and beyond) isn’t just about adopting the latest tools—it’s about embedding AI into the way we operate day to day. With the help of AI, marketers can redefine their industries, create new markets and drive economic growth. At Sprout, we’re committed to ensuring our team not only understands AI’s potential, but is equipped to use it responsibly and ethically.

Marketing leaders and steering committees play a pivotal role in this transformation by championing AI initiatives and promoting cross-functional collaboration. These groups ensure that the benefits of AI extend beyond marketing and permeate the entire company. By doing so, we empower our teams to innovate, drive results and stay ahead in an ever-evolving landscape.

Looking for more resources to help drive AI adoption across marketing and your entire company? Check out our toolkit of AI resources for social media teams.

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5 influencer marketing KPIs to measure your next campaign

The world of social media influencers has transformed significantly in recent years. What began as brands sending free products to popular social media users has now evolved into a multi-billion dollar industry, where contracted brand deals are closely aligned with targeted campaigns. Influencer marketing is no longer a novelty—it’s a critical component of advertising strategies.

Influencers don’t need celebrity status to make an impact for your brand. In fact, depending on your campaign goals, a nano-influencer could be an even stronger choice. To make the best decision in an influencer partner, clearly define your objectives for the partnership and then work backward to find the right fit.

In this guide, we’ll explore what influencer marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) are and why they matter. Plus, we’ll suggest a number of KPIs to get you started for your next influencer campaign.

What are influencer marketing KPIs?

Influencer marketing KPIs are essential to campaigns as they quantify the work both you and the influencer do. They define the overall ROI of the investment your brand made in partnering with a specific influencer. The KPIs you prioritize can guide which influencers you choose to work with, too.

Why are influencer marketing KPIs important?

Clearly defined goals set the foundation for stronger campaigns. Here are four specific benefits to setting KPIs for your next influencer partnership.

Measure influencer marketing ROI

KPIs offer the clearest insight into the impact of an influencer campaign.

Influencer marketing ROI can appear at any stage of the customer journey, from securing interest at the top of the funnel to converting a sale at the bottom of the funnel. Tracking appropriate KPIs will spotlight where and how your influencer campaigns reach your customers.

Set clear goals and benchmarks

Vague campaign goals will leave both you and your influencer partners frustrated. Clear KPIs let influencers know what’s expected of them upfront, ensuring a smoother collaboration.

The Sprout Social Index™ 2023 found that one of social media marketers’ top priorities in 2024 is to better quantify engagement in terms of business revenue, and 42% now include social traffic that leads to purchases in their reporting. Establishing clear benchmarks and KPIs allows you to directly link social traffic from influencers to conversions.

Optimize campaign performance

Influencer marketing KPIs are the guideposts in your campaign roadmap. As you and your influencer partners travel the campaign journey together, your KPIs serve as touchpoints to let you know you’re on the right track.

Optimize your influencer marketing campaigns by clearly defining key metrics and KPIs, and maintaining focus on them throughout the process. That way, you can make adjustments if the campaign starts veering off track.

Make informed partner selections

KPIs are an excellent tool to help you find the right influencers for your brand or campaign. If you truly need the most impressions possible, or want to break into a new market, a macro or even mega influencer with a large audience may be the best fit.

If engagement and brand sentiment are high on your list, a micro or nano influencer with an interactive, community-centric social media presence could be a great choice.

In this example, Portland, OR micro-influencer Candace Molatore worked with both Alaska Airlines and Portland International Airport to showcase the brand new terminal at the airport. Her post, which included a personal and sentimental connection to the airport, generated a significant amount of positive engagement from her audience. This influencer partnership was a great fit for driving engagement and enhancing the reputation of both brands.

Influencer marketing KPIs to start tracking

Once you have a solid understanding of why KPIs are important for influencer marketing, it’s time to select the ones that matter most for your brand’s goals. The KPIs you prioritize may change from campaign to campaign. Here are some common KPIs you can consider.

Reach and impressions

Reach and impressions are common metrics for many social media campaigns, making them natural KPIs for influencer marketing as well.

The right influencer partner can get you in front of potential customers you may struggle to reach via traditional advertising, including people who might not have considered your brand otherwise. Many influencers provide media kits that include average reach and impression numbers to set expectations upfront.

Earned media value

Marketing approaches typically involve two types of media: owned (the channels you have direct control of the content on, including social media, blogs, etc.) and earned (coverage of your brand that wasn’t purchased advertising and usually comes from PR efforts, such as television or print media mentions).

Earned media value (EMV) assigns advertising value to that earned coverage. This same metric can be applied to influencer campaigns. Likes, shares, comments and more all have value that can translate to social advertising dollars. A common formula for calculating EMV for an influencer campaign is:

Total impressions X Cost Per Mille (CPM) = EMV

CPM is the cost your brand pays per 1,000 impressions (“mille”) for a social ad. You can apply this to a specific social media network by using the CPM your brand normally pays in social ad campaigns.

Engagement

Social media engagement has become the gold standard of social marketing KPIs for good reason. Getting your content seen is one thing; getting potential customers to interact with your content is another.

Influencer marketing campaigns offer unique opportunities for your brand to engage with your target audience through likes, comments and shares. Influencers sharing products from brands they personally love often feels more authentic than a social ad a user was served randomly.

Conversions

Influencer campaigns can directly lead to conversions and even sales with the right approach. In fact, Sprout’s 2024 Influencer Marketing Report found that 86% of consumers make a purchase inspired by an influencer at least once a year.

To track conversions through your KPIs, you can focus on CPM and click through rate (CTR).

As mentioned, CPM is the cost your brand pays per 1,000 impressions for a social ad. CTR, on the other hand, refers to the percentage of people who click on an element they’ve been exposed to (think an affiliate link, newsletter sign up pop up, etc.).

In influencer marketing, these two KPIs show you both how many conversions were earned from the campaign and how much that same CTR would have cost in a regular advertising campaign.

Brand sentiment and awareness

Ideally, your overall brand awareness should increase as part of any influencer campaign. Brand sentiment is a nuanced KPI that speaks to how current customers, potential customers and the general public feel about your organization as a whole.

Conducting a sentiment analysis before and after an influencer campaign can highlight where and how the partnership made a difference.

How to select the right KPIs for your goals

KPIs vary for different brands and campaigns. To choose the best influencer marketing KPIs for your specific project, get clear on your goals and audience and be ready to adjust as needed.

Start with clear campaign objectives

Clear objectives and communication will start any influencer partnership off on the right foot. You need to be able to state the goals for your campaign. This may include things like generating sales, increasing brand awareness, launching in a new market or boosting customer sentiment.

Align KPIs with specific objectives

Your objectives should be specific, and your chosen KPIs should integrate with them. Include ideal outcomes and numbers where possible.

For example, if your influencer campaign has a goal of increasing positive customer sentiment by 25%, include KPIs around brand sentiment score and engagements like positive comments, likes and saves.

Consider your target audience

How well do you know your social media target audience? Knowing who they are and their social media habits will guide your KPI selection.

Are they a normally active audience that comments, shares and saves content? If not, that type of engagement might be a lower priority for you; alternatively, your influencer campaign could be an opportunity to encourage more community.

Use a mix of qualitative and quantitative KPIs

A simple number or statistic only tells you a small portion of the story. Conveying the ROI of your influencer marketing campaigns requires a mix of the quantitative and the qualitative.

A good data storytelling approach includes KPIs that speak to quantifiable info like reach and impressions as well as qualitative details like audience feedback and media coverage.

Continuously review and adjust your KPIs

KPIs for influencer marketing aren’t a “set it and forget it” part of your strategy. Once your partnership gets rolling, things may shift externally or internally that require some KPI reworking. You may see some unexpected demographics interacting with the influencer’s posts, or change in product development might present a new feature you can now announce. Don’t be afraid to be flexible and review, consider and adjust your KPIs as you go.

How to track and analyze influencer marketing KPIs

With your newly selected influencer marketing KPIs in hand, you’re ready to launch your project and start seeing the impact. We recommend implementing an influencer management tool and setting up proper tracking parameters to get the most out of your campaign.

Choose the right tracking tools

There are influencer marketing tools on the market that can support every stage of your projects, from influencer selection to daily management to campaign reporting.

Consider what tools you already have in place and whether they have features that translate to influencer marketing. You can also look into a tool specifically for your influencer program that covers all the bases.

For example, Sprout Social’s influencer marketing tool, Tagger, offers an AI-powered platform to find and choose influencers, create your strategy, execute campaigns and measure performance.

Set up tracking parameters

In some cases, you’ll have a specific UTM link that your influencer partner can share with their audience. This is beneficial for sorting specific traffic the influencer sends your way and accurately tracking your KPIs.

Be sure to set up your tracking parameters before beginning your campaign to get the best insights possible. Some influencer marketing tools, like Sprout’s, offer link tracking in-platform.

Analyze data and draw insights

As soon as data starts flowing in, you can dive in on analysis. While a comprehensive review at the campaign’s end is important, you don’t have to wait until things wrap to extract valuable insights.

Keep an eye on each of the KPIs you set and watch for both the expected and unexpected. As the campaign continues, draw out key insights that show how things are going and where you might adjust.

Select the right influencer marketing KPIs for your next campaign

Influencer partnerships can be a boon for your brand, and choosing appropriate KPIs is foundational to campaign success. Stay nimble—the influencer world is still evolving, and your KPIs and campaigns can, too.

If you need a platform to help you keep track of influencer marketing KPIs and overall social media strategy, get a demo of Sprout’s influencer marketing tool today.

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How brands and partners use the Sprout Social API

In a world that moves at the speed of social, brands are constantly on their toes to keep up with customers and the competition. For social teams, it’s a juggling act that demands attention to detail and adaptability.

From scheduling posts and engaging with audiences to analyzing metrics and staying on top of trends, social teams always have their hands full.

Technical integrations that seamlessly connect with your existing stack to manage all your social media operations can save the day. They provide social teams with the ability to manage multiple workloads simultaneously, so they can focus on optimizing your brand’s social ROI.

By connecting your systems and automating routine tasks, technical integration makes it easier for your team to focus on what really matters—creating powerful narratives and driving meaningful engagement. Thus, turning social media management into a well-oiled machine where everything clicks into place effortlessly.

In this article, you’ll read how the Sprout Social API does just this for your brand. In particular, find out how our brands and partners use our API for publishing and reporting.

Does Sprout Social have an open API?

Yes, Sprout Social has an open API. The Sprout Public API enables you to extend your external workflows by integrating with our Publishing and Reporting tools.

Streamline your critical content creation workflows and funnel all your social profile data into your dashboards for centralized, automated reporting. This way, you’re able to meet your unique reporting needs and integrate social data into your broader analytics processes.

You can easily export post drafts, including text, images, videos, carousels and links, from your current project management software or content management tools to the Sprout platform. Also, plan and schedule the exported content in Sprout without disrupting the project management workflows you’re already working on.

Plus, your dedicated development teams can build custom integrations with your existing project/content management tools as and when you require them.

To access the Sprout Public API, your account must be authorized for API-use by your Sprout account representative. Once your account is provisioned, you can either ​​create an Account-scoped access token or an OAuth access token (using our OAuth 2.0 provider) to authenticate API requests.

Here’s a quick look at what the Sprout API includes:

• Owned profile data: Matches the data available in Sprout’s Profile Performance, X Profiles, Facebook Pages, Instagram Business Profiles, LinkedIn Pages, Pinterest Profiles, TikTok Profiles and YouTube Videos Report.
• Post data: This matches Sprout’s Post Performance Report data.
• Owned demographic data: View the data available in Sprout’s Facebook Pages, Instagram Business Profiles, LinkedIn Pages and TikTok Profiles Reports.
• Message data: Get detailed information, including metadata, about your messages. This includes messages received by and replied to from your profiles.
• Publishing posts: Create posts within Sprout.
• Media upload: Upload Media for use with publishing posts.
• Direct Tableau Connector: The Tableau Connector uses the Sprout API to pull your social data into Tableau. The metrics and data points are collected directly from those available in the Sprout API. This enables you to easily analyze Sprout API data directly in Tableau.
• Listening Topics: Retrieve earned media-related metrics and messages found within your Listening Topics.

Find out more details about the Sprout API.

How brands and partners use the Sprout Social Publishing API

Our customers and partners use the Sprout Social Publishing API to streamline their workflow, creating and publishing on-brand social content faster and more efficiently. Here are use cases from a few of our integrations, which are available with the Sprout Premium Analytics add-on.

Slate

The Sprout Social Publishing API integrates with the Slate CRM platform. You can craft and publish social content via Sprout, plus track content performance through our Reporting.

Create content in Slate’s Web Editor and send it directly to Sprout. Social teams can then log into Sprout to check the content before publishing or scheduling it.

The integration also enables you to reuse your top-performing content from Slate and send it to Sprout to schedule and publish across networks.

Once your content is published, you can track the performance of your social content through the Post Performance Report. Customize your reports by using Tagging to focus on the content you want to track based on your goals and objectives.

More about our Slate integration.

Opal

Our Opal integration enables brands to export and schedule branded content into Sprout, making it easy to collaborate with broader marketing teams.

This content is delivered seamlessly, so the content library in the Sprout platform is always updated. You can then log into Sprout to review the delivered content and publish it on your social profiles. You can also schedule the delivered content for publishing based on your campaign calendar. Once the post is published, you’ll receive a live URL on Opal from Sprout.

All the content that’s delivered from Opal is ​​added to the Sprout Library. If a piece of content is already in the Sprout repository, our tool will automatically link to the existing asset to avoid duplicates. This way you’re not worried about unnecessary data clogging up your asset library and have the relevant content you need at your fingertips.

As for content types, Sprout supports a wide variety on Opal. This includes Facebook posts and videos, Instagram posts, videos, Reels and carousels, TikTok videos, LinkedIn posts, X (formerly Twitter) posts and videos‌, and YouTube videos.

Optimizely

Sprout integrates with Optimizely’s Content Marketing Platform (CMP) to give you seamless workflows for managing social media campaigns. The integration enables large teams to collaborate more effectively by helping them plan their content better and schedule posts for publishing in one single workspace.

Import approved social content, including text, image and videos, to Sprout as post drafts and schedule them across your social networks as needed. Thus, eliminating the need for manual curation and giving time back to social teams so they can focus on the more strategic aspects of their work. Another key integration feature is Task-Based Publishing, which enables marketers to publish posts directly from tasks within the Optimizely CMP.

The Optimizely integration is available with the Sprout Premium Analytics add-on.

How brands and partners use the Sprout Social Reporting API

The Sprout Social Reporting API helps brands select metrics that best match their business goals and prove the impact of their data. Teams can view important insights in presentation-ready reports, which can also be quickly distributed to key stakeholders within the larger organization.

Here’s a walk-through of how brands and partners use some of our integrations.

Tableau

Our Tableau BI Connector helps you combine the power of your social data with all your important data streams.

Brands can connect Sprout into Tableau without additional developer resources and customize data visualization based on your data storytelling requirements. Choose the metrics you want and need per your priorities to understand how your social data fits into your overall business strategy. This helps you get an omni-channel view of your business insights as they funnel through all your key channels.

Connecting to Tableau from your Sprout account is easy. Use your Sprout API token to set up the Tableau Connector and then log into Tableau.

Navigate to Data > New Data Source > Web Data Connector

Once you’re in the Web Data Connector, enter the URL (https://api.sproutsocial.com/tableau), paste your Sprout API token and click Connect.

With this connection in place, your Sprout data will automatically appear in Tableau. ​​Now you can customize your Tableau dashboards to slice and dice your Sprout data as needed.

Datorama

Sprout Premium Analytics users can ​​bring their social marketing analytics into their marketing dashboards in Datorama, Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud Intelligence platform.

This Sprout Salesforce integration gives you metrics such as post-level data, Sprout Tag and campaign data as well as network metrics that aren’t available in Datorama, such as TikTok. You can also manage all profile permissions and reauthorizations in one place.

To start using the Sprout integration exclusively in Salesforce, use the API key, which you can generate by going into:

Account and settings > Settings > Click API Tokens under Reporting and Listening > Click Sprout’s Analytics API Terms of Service to review the terms > Select Agree, and Submit

 

Once you click Submit, your API key will be generated. Create a name for your Token and click Create Token.

Copy and paste your token in Datorama, and you’re all set.

Chattermill

The Sprout Social API integrates with customer experience (CX) platform, Chattermill, so brands can benefit from Sprout’s comprehensive analytics and reporting.

You can connect all your social media accounts on Sprout via Chattermill to track and measure customer feedback in social mentions. This enables you to have detailed reporting on common customer complaints, trends and spikes in conversations in one central dashboard. Teams get these insights in easy-to-understand reports and can easily share them with leaders and stakeholders to highlight and prove the brand’s social ROI.

Sprout customers can also use the Chattermill integration to analyze brand sentiment in customer feedback on review websites. This helps you understand your customer experience more holistically and draw actionable insights for tangible improvements to products and services.

Track your social ROI to propel your brand forward

Measuring and tracking your social ROI isn’t just about proving the value of your efforts—it’s a strategy that can move your brand forward in the right direction. Through integrations, teams can work smarter, saving time and resources spent on manual tasks or jumping between platforms for activities that have a greater impact.

The Sprout Social API helps you integrate your social data with your CRM and CX tools so you gain the insights you need. This helps you refine your marketing approach, optimize campaigns and make data-driven decisions that help you remain competitive, ever-green brand.

These metrics also give you the ability to allocate resources more effectively, ensuring that every action contributes to your brand’s growth and success.

Explore Sprout’s Premium Social Media and Analytics Reporting to improve your social strategies and prove your impact for sustained long-term success.

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