The realm of social media marketing is in an incessant flux. A different algorithm is always in retrogression. New networks rise and fade within a few months. A single trend can alter the entire vibe of an industry’s environment.
In a landscape with minimal constants, there is one undeniable truth: ever since the inception of social marketers, the relentless quest for additional time and resources has existed.
According to our Social Media Productivity Report, almost half (48%) of social media marketers report that they sometimes or rarely have sufficient time to complete their tasks.
This challenge resonates deeply with Sprout and shapes our product roadmap. In our most recent episode of Breaking Ground, Sprout’s Q3 2024 Launch Event, we provided an insider’s view of our latest features aimed at enabling social teams to operate more efficiently and effectively. Because making an impact shouldn’t come at the expense of burnout.
Here’s what we discussed.
Streamline content creation with Sprout’s partner ecosystem
Social teams navigate complex work that is fragmented not just across various networks but also across multiple martech solutions. Thanks to our comprehensive partner ecosystem, Sprout provides real-time APIs and integrations that link our platform with your favorite tools. The outcome? Reduced tedious context-switching, expedited workflows, and simpler ways to share social data throughout your organization.
Our Social Media Productivity Report highlighted that content creation is among the most time-intensive tasks for social marketers each week—it’s also the task that clients frequently express a desire to streamline. With our new publishing endpoints in our Public API, social teams can quickly transfer content from project or content management tools to draft posts in Sprout.
In addition to the existing integrations with Opal and Slate, we’re thrilled to announce a new integration with Optimizely and an upcoming link with Zapier, allowing you to take advantage of automation and tailored publishing workflows with your preferred tool.
Leverage LinkedIn’s power for your brand
1.5 million pieces of content are shared every minute on LinkedIn. With such activity, this platform continually offers brands fresh opportunities to engage with job seekers, employees, brand advocates, and the media.
To make the most of the world’s largest professional network, we’re set to unveil two LinkedIn releases in the upcoming months:
- Company DMs—a highly requested feature from our community—will soon be available in the Smart Inbox and cases. Whether addressing inquiries from job candidates or engaging potential corporate partners, social and care teams will be able to respond directly from Sprout.
- Enhanced Owned Mentions features are also on their way to Listening, providing social teams with a more comprehensive view of the conversations surrounding your brand.
Surpass customer expectations with prompt, personalized support
Although AI remains a divisive subject, nearly 75% of consumers agree they would welcome brands using the technology to provide quicker customer service on social media, according to a Sprout Q1 2024 Pulse Survey.
This is promising for brands, considering that 80% of consumers report using social media more now than a year ago to meet their service needs. As social media becomes a key platform for customers to voice their concerns, care teams require tools that help them scale and meet heightened expectations.
This is why we are enhancing functionality to assist care teams in efficiently triaging and responding to incoming messages. Case auto-assignment* will enable managers to instantly distribute new cases based on individual agent availability and capacity, balancing workloads across the team. Automated rules for cases* will empower teams to tailor care processes according to their specific requirements. Actions can be triggered based on a variety of criteria (including case status, team, assignee, or tags). For example, if a message contains a certain keyword, you can establish a rule for that case to be assigned to the agent with the most relevant expertise.
For global pizza chain Papa Johns, having a unified platform for social media management and customer care is essential. With Sprout, their team has achieved a 50% enhancement in average social response rate and saved over 830 hours annually. “Our care team can now swiftly address customer inquiries and feedback, boosting satisfaction and loyalty…Response time has been halved since transitioning to Sprout,” stated Josh Martin, Director, Social Media & Brand Engagement.
And speaking of our extensive partner ecosystem: coming soon for Sprout and Salesforce Service Cloud users is the ability to utilize Einstein Copilot,* providing care agents with a complete view of a customer via conversational AI.
For instance, an agent who is inundated with messages can ask their AI Assistant Copilot to retrieve a contact’s case history. Copilot would examine the brand’s Service Cloud data to quickly gather insights on what that customer has previously contacted about, delivering the agent all the context needed to respond thoughtfully and resolve the issue.
React swiftly with AI-powered social insights
You didn’t think we’d discuss Breaking Ground without mentioning AI, did you?
According to The 2023 State of Social Media Report, 95% of business leaders concur that companies must increasingly depend on social media data and insights to guide decisions beyond marketing, yet 69% state that such data is underutilized. This highlights the need for tools that promptly surface the appropriate data in a user-friendly manner.
Our latest AI-driven updates are designed to do just that, significantly reducing the time needed for marketers to find, analyze, and act on social data, which includes:
- Comment Sentiment in Reports—The past few years have highlighted the unmatched influence of the comments section on social media. Soon, Premium Analytics customers will have the ability to track and report on overall comment sentiment across posts, providing teams with a clearer understanding of what content resonates and how to refine their strategy accordingly.
- Competitive Conversation Breakdown Widget—Elevate your social listening tactics with this new widget, which integrates sentiment data alongside top smart categories, keywords, hashtags, mentions, and emojis identified in your competitive queries. Utilizing this widget in competitive listening themes helps you stay aware of discussions occurring within and around your industry.
- Industry Themes—We’re rolling out innovative methods to expedite social data analysis with industry-specific Listening Themes. Starting with healthcare and higher education, these pre-made Themes will assist marketers in visualizing and exploring social discussions pertinent to their sectors (for instance, admissions, campus safety, and alumni in higher education).
Analyze by AI Assist has transformed my approach to content and campaign analysis … What used to take me hours of manual work—like spotting trends, assessing performance, and generating insights—can now occur in mere minutes.
Erica Bufford
Social Listening and Reporting, Tesco
Last (but certainly not least), our Generate by AI Assist feature will soon enter beta testing. When creativity falters, marketers can request inspiration from AI Assist by exploring top-performing posts—no prompt necessary. Whether you need a plethora of posts for your forthcoming campaign or require a boost against writer’s block for an individual caption, you can kick-start your efforts with AI-generated—on-brand—content.
Reclaim authority over your calendar
Social moves swiftly. Social marketers should not be tied down to processes or technology that hinder their pace. With the proper tools, you can set the agenda of your to-do list and dedicate more time to work that delights customers and showcases social’s impact on the business.
Discover more about all the releases—and additional features—announced during our Breaking Ground Q3 2024 event.
(*Denotes capabilities available in Advanced Plans.)
The post Breaking Ground: Sprout updates to get excited about in Q3 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.
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