More and more small businesses are paying attention to online public relations, and are trying tools and resources to help them get in touch with their audience.
But so many of the tools that exist for this only measure one-way communication. They can only tell you what is going out. One of the ways they fall short is in helping you understand whether or not you are actually being heard - and more importantly, by the right people. This is caused by not having enough insight into where conversations are happening online and into the influence level of the people having the conversations.
Sprout Social is an online social media management tool that provides users with an in-depth view of their own influence and engagement level across multiple social networks, while at the same time providing an extensive amount of tools to allow users to find audiences, join conversations, and share content.
Gathering Data Across Multiple Networks
One of Sprout Social’s key features is the ability to gather data across multiple social networks, including the ability to quickly find and join conversations based around keywords. In February, Sprout Insights published a case study about the use of Sprout Social in a public relations outreach effort for the Chicago branch of the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.
Social media manager Melissa Talon used very specific keywords related to Pancreatic Cancer to “find conversations within 100 miles of Chicago” that were happening in Twitter. This practice is common, as it’s an effective way to join relevant conversations with people in the network who are most familiar with a given cause.
Data that has been gathered and analyzed in the Sprout Social dashboard can be used to help a social media manager see what their existing audience profile consists of. Audience demographics include metrics for gender percentages and age distribution.
Social Media Monitoring and Reputation Tracking
Aside from gathering and analyzing data revolving around an audience, it’s important for social media managers and their peers to understand their own influence across the web, as well as their brand’s reputation. Sprout Social can determine how well a user account interacts with their audience by way of engagement and influence metrics, and users can utilizing the Smart Search feature to discover conversations using specific keywords.
For example, a user could create a Smart Search to track their restaurant name and “reservations” or “Yelp” to find conversations that are most likely impacting their brand reputation.
One thing that Sprout Social does not do is analyze sentiment, which is an important part of social media monitoring. However, Sprout Social’s tools allow users to to tune into the conversations influential people are having about a brand and/or its competitors.
Social Media Management
The dashboard component of Sprout Social is an effective tool for managing many aspects of social networking.
From within the dashboard, users can search for users to connect with, and this includes the ability to both follow and unfollow accounts. What makes Sprout Social particularly unique, however, is that suggestions for following are based on characteristics such as:
- Influence
- Users who have mentioned you
- Users who have checked into your venue (for Foursquare and Gowalla accounts)
Sprout Social also makes suggestions on who to unfollow, based on things like inactivity. The overall goal is to help create the most engaging social media environment.
There are also tools to start conversations, including the ability to publish a status update from the dashboard, and a bookmarklet that can be used in a browser’s toolbar to instantly push content to social media networks connected with a Sprout Social account.
Effective online PR efforts require the ability to create and monitor messages, as well as the ability to effectively manage and refine an audience, and lastly, the ability to measure and analyze one’s own performance. Sprout Social provides the monitoring and management capabilities that are necessary for successful online PR.
My own take on public relations is that it needs to come out of the closet and stop denying things, pretending things and generally being secretive about the truth. I figure this is as true for politicians as it is for hamburger chains. Concealment of truth worked when folks lived on isolated farms and depended on the radio for information. There are so many examples of companies trying to withhold important information from the public for fear of tarnishing their image and having this information eventually be leaked into social media. The impact this type of scandal can have on a company's bottom line is typically worse than if the company had been forthcoming with the information in the first place. we've a software and if you want to allow your clients to see what you've been up to PR wise, this software helps them research and understand your PR efforts.