I love sprouts
For a long time I was calling this social media management tool 'Social Sprout' in error, it made me giggle when I realised I'd transposed the words. Social Sprout doesn't conjure quite the same beautiful imagery as 'Social Butterfly' or make you think of the beautiful green shoots metaphor that so many business people (and politicians) use - clearly the intended imagery by the very clever people behind the company 'Sprout Social'.
...but have you ever seen a brussel sprout growing - it's amazing, dozens of them just pop out of the stalk. I grow my own and have to keep those pesky butterflies away with nets ;)
I bought it
Back to serious business! I'm really enjoying this social media management tool, enough so that I have paid out (yes actual money) for the monthly subscription to a small biz account after my months free trial with this US based company. The minimum cost is $9 for a 'pro account' - that's £5.60. I really like the site, it's been designed by someone who seems to think just like me.
One almighty column
This is what sold it to me first - Just one column a super smart inbox where all my messages and updates go. I know other management tools have these, but they are not so beautiful and easy to interact with in my opinion. Also I am not Keanu Reeves looking at the Matrix, I do not have the ability to read 6 columns simultaneously, hootsuite and tweetdeck encourage us to do this. They tempt us to add more and more columns, it's become hard for me to navigate/concentrate and I don't have time to reorganise it all, especially with all the kung fu lessons ;)After 2 years I have realised these multi columns on tweetdeck and hootsuite et al, do actually slow me down and distract me. With Sprout, I can just click and the feed is filtered - pretty much I can get to whatever I want in one click and then (importantly) back to where I was in one more click - all with just the one stream of information at any one time.
Free trial
There are so many really useful features and you can have a look yourself by signing up to the free month trial - they don't ask for any payment details upfront, but you will get a friendly email from their team to see if you like the product and want to go ahead.
Here's a video / webinar produced by Sprout Social that gives you a very in depth look at the features (which are constantly being updated) - it's 45 minutes long but it's a proper run through all of the features.
I must stress that this management tool is particularly great for continuity if you have more than one team member that updates your accounts and/or if you have multiple accounts that you look after, your own or as a social media manager like me.
back soon,
x Hilary :)