With AI images now going viral across Twitter, the social media platform has decided to update its crowdsourced "fact checking" feature to directly deal with not just the tweet that includes the media, but the media itself.
Twitter is now rolling out "Notes on Media" as part of its Community Notes program. Users who take part in Community Notes, which allows users to add context or fact checks to tweets, will now be able to add these addendums to AI-created photos and other forms of manipulated media as well.
Previously Community Notes users could add notes at the tweet level and the note would follow the tweet around in retweets, quote tweets, and embeds. However, if the actual image itself was reuploaded in a new post, the Community Note on the original upload which added context to the image would not be included. Twitter says the Community Note will now follow the image around as well and will "automatically appear on recent & future matching images."
Users who want to take part in Community Notes need to apply for the program. Once accepted, they can start rating existing Notes. Once they rate enough Notes that get added to a tweet, their Rating Score will go up and they will then be able to write their own Community Notes. But, in order to write Notes on images, users must have had their own originally authored notes added to a tweet, which builds their Writing Impact Score. A Writing Impact Score of 10 will allow users to write a Community Note on an image.
Notes on Media looks just like the previously existing Community Notes label, except it denotes that "Readers added context to this image."
This feature should also not be confused with Twitter's previously existing "Manipulated media" label, which is affixed by the company itself to a tweet containing "synthetic" or "manipulated" images or video. Twitter launched that label back in 2020 in order to combat AI-created images when deepfakes exploded in popularity.
For now, Notes on Media will only work on tweets containing a single still image. Twitter says it hopes to roll out the program for videos, GIFs, and tweets containing multiple pieces of media in the near future.
As the feature was just launched, it remains to be seen how well it'll work. Twitter will need a system in place to detect reuploads and users have found various ways over the years to avoid content detection on platforms like Facebook and YouTube in order to get around copyright issues.
Managing communications has become quite the juggling act. Each passing year throws in a new challenge, whether that be keeping up with audience interests, navigating tough economic conditions or even defusing an unexpected brand crisis.
There’s been a lot of discussion around the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing and communications and for good reason: AI has the potential to reshape the corporate communications landscape. Corporate communications teams have become responsible for safeguarding their brand from potential misfires caused by AI technology. However, knowing where to begin in assessing the risks and benefits can be challenging.
Rachelle Bedell, Communications and Engagement Manager for the City of Gilroy, CA, has been experimenting with generative AI as she develops content to build connections between Gilroy’s local government and its 60,000 residents.
We spoke to Bedell about her big takeaways on the benefits and drawbacks of using AI in communications roles. In this guide, we’ll cover her tips, along with more advice on how communications leaders can empower their teams to use this technology with confidence.
What can communications teams do with AI?
Many people claim that AI can increase your team’s productivity, but is there any evidence to support this? According to Bedell, there is.
“Not only does it make us more efficient, it makes us go further,” says Bedell. “It’s like the invention of the graphing calculator for math. We don’t have to sit around and add numbers with paper and a pencil anymore. Instead, we can take what it provides and do so much more.”
But what does “more” look like exactly? Here are three practical corporate communications applications that can help your team save time.
Streamline content ideation and creation
Coommunications professionals not only have to come up with creative, compelling brand messaging, they also have to tailor that message for specific channels, audiences and events. Meeting the right person with the right message at the right time is only getting harder.
Luckily, AI is here to help.
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can’t provide you with ready-to-publish content: There’s still a lot of ambiguity around whether AI-generated content is protected under copyright law. To safeguard your business, it’s important to customize the final output with your brand’s distinctive tone. This will ensure a personal touch that maintains your brand’s image.
“I use it most often for rewrites,” says Bedell. “I’ll ask for ideas on how to rephrase content so it’s more engaging or so that it drives a specific action, then I evaluate its response and refine from there.”
AI-powered tools can give you a new perspective and spark creativity, guiding you in the right direction without having to wait for inspiration to strike.
“It’s a great starting point for creative ideas,” says Bedell. “For example, I’m working on the city’s annual Pride Month campaign. We’ve done campaigns in the past where we’ve explored the symbolism of the Pride flag, and another where we highlighted important historical figures of the movement, but this year I wanted to do something different. I asked ChatGPT to generate some ideas and dove in from there.”
At Sprout, our communications team employs generative AI to develop creative titles for press releases and media pitches. A simple prompt like “Write 3-4 press release headline variations related to X, Y, and Z” can return valuable starting points for further refinement.
Collect social insights
Audience insights are the foundation of better brand positioning. With AI, communications teams can gain a deeper understanding of the customer’s mind through social media sentiment analysis.
Sentiment analysis tools use machine learning to gather information about consumer attitudes and assess their emotional state. In communications, these insights are commonly used to sharpen media pitches, messaging and executive comms.
For example, the Indiana University marketing and communications team relies on insights from Sprout’s Social Listening tool to stay up-to-date on campus conversations and get ahead of potential crises. These insights allow them to take proactive measures toward managing their reputation online.
At Sprout, we’re committed to building on this technology with a series of new AIfeatures across the platform. We’re combining the power of our proprietary machine learning and automation capabilities with OpenAI’s GPT model. The new features will be available throughout the Sprout platform, starting with additions to listening, publishing, customer care and advocacy.
Gain a global advantage
Multilingual sentiment analysis uses native language machine learning to gather meaningful sentiment data from content across several languages. These tools capture the nuances specific to each language’s unique grammar rules.
These insights strengthen communications efforts geared toward non-English audiences, allowing you to build a brand that serves the diverse needs of your audience. For communications professionals like Bedell, such insights can ensure that all audiences receive messages that are both effective and equitable.
“California just passed a state-wide law allowing sidewalk vendors,” says Bedell. “Now, we’re changing our processes to accommodate state law. That includes creating ways to make the permit accessible to both our English- and Spanish-speaking populations.”
In the future, Bedell could use multilingual sentiment analysis to ground this work in data gathered from Spanish speakers in the region. This would help her create a more personalized message that reflects how residents are discussing the issue.
How communications teams can mitigate risks when working with AI
AI will undoubtedly transform the field of communications, but the professionals behind the screen are irreplaceable.
“The other day I saw a headline that said communications teams will eventually be replaced by AI,” says Bedell. “I knew it had to come from someone who isn’t currently working in communications. There’s too much nuance in the role for it to be fully automated. The tech isn’t there yet.”
On top of that, there’s a foundational communication skill that will always need a human touch: relationship-building.
“I don’t think people realize how much relationship-building goes into communications,” says Bedell. “It’s half the battle. The success of our content is dependent on our relationships with downtown businesses, the public health department—the list goes on.”
Instead of asking whether AI will replace our jobs, we should consider how it will transform them. The collaboration between AI and communication professionals creates a path toward a future where technology enhances human creativity, insight and productivity, redefining what’s possible for individuals at every level.
However, it’s crucial to acknowledge the risks associated with adopting AI. Finding the right balance between AI and human effort is key to achieving the best outcomes. As you embrace AI’s potential in communications, it’s important to understand and address the risks that come with it.
Double-check everything
Professionals who use text-based generative AI solutions should be cautious of potential avenues for misinformation, like “chatbot hallucinations” or faulty claims.
Bedell has experienced these issues firsthand. “I’ve had times where I’ve asked ChatGPT to share its sources and it hasn’t always worked out. Once, when I was looking for a source for an example it included, it told me that it didn’t realize I wanted a real example and had included a hypothetical option instead.”
When using AI-generated content, it’s crucial to ensure its accuracy and originality by reviewing it thoroughly. Always ask for sources from AI-powered assistants, and take the time to verify their validity. These steps are essential for maintaining your brand’s safety and avoiding potential crises.
Prioritize data security
Speaking of crises, any comms pro will tell you that even a mild data security mishap can be an absolute nightmare.
Communication teams aren’t responsible for setting the rules around how and why teams use AI. They will, however, have to deal with any fallout that occurs if an employee shares confidential information with an AI tool, creating an unfortunate privacy issue.
“You have to have conversations with legal and technical teams to understand the pitfalls your organization may face when working with AI,” says Bedell. “It’s important to find safe ways to let your employees leverage this type of tool.”
At Sprout, we’re prioritizing the security of our data and intellectual property by educating our teams on safe usage of generative AI. To ensure responsible use, our legal and IT teams worked together to create a policy outlining approved and prohibited use cases.
The policy is concise and straightforward, even for individuals with limited experience using AI tools. This helps busy teams navigate changes more easily, even with the rapid developments of generative AI.
Embrace experimentation
There are risks that come with using AI. That said, not using AI also presents risks of its own.
Bedell broke it down like this: “On one hand, you have companies that are embracing AI. On the other, there are companies that have chosen to prohibit its use entirely because it’s too new. I understand being concerned about the risk, but I feel like they’re missing a huge opportunity to let their people learn how to truly leverage it.”
Artificial intelligence is here to stay. We’ll continue to find more applications for AI in communications, media and PR. To avoid falling behind, it is essential to encourage your team to experiment frequently with AI technology.
Harnessing the power of AI in communications
Artificial intelligence can be a powerful ally in the ever-evolving world of corporate communication. When we combine AI with human expertise, we open ourselves up to a new era of communication that allows professionals to connect, resonate and drive success at scale.
For more insights on how communications leaders are extracting value from emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and more, check out Sprout’s 2023 State of Social Media Report.
Ever since Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion last year, it's been a widely agreed upon stance that he greatly overpaid for the social media platform.
However, the amount in which he overpaid seems to be widening post-acquisition.
According to Fidelity, Twitter is now worth around 33 percent what the billionaire originally paid for it. That puts Twitter's value at roughly $15 billion. The number comes from the investment firm's own valuation of its own stake in Musk's Twitter, which Fidelity helped finance.
Twitter's valuation from Fidelity follows a pattern since Musk took over in October of last year. Fidelity has consistently downgraded its own holdings in the company, knocking the value of its stake by 56 percent just a month after the acquisition closed. By the end of February, Fidelity further downgraded its stake by more than 63 percent before knocking it down by a full two-thirds this month.
Despite Musk's recent claims about Twitter soon breaking even or even becoming profitable, the company's outlook has not been particularly good. Twitter lost around half of its biggest advertisers when Musk took over. Many still had not returned by earlier this year and those who had continued to advertise on the platform were spending a significant amount less.
Musk turned to subscription-based revenue models like Twitter Blue and Subscriptions to make up for those losses, but even those have proven to be unsuccessful.
Twitter Blue is an $8 per month subscription service that gives premium features, such as longer tweets and videos as well as the once-coveted blue checkmark badge, to paying users. Based on the latest data from researcher Travis Brown, far less than 1 percent of Twitter's entire monthly active user base has subscribed to Twitter Blue.
Twitter's other subscription product, known as Subscriptions, allows users to pay a monthly fee directly to a specific Twitter user in order to access exclusive paywalled tweets and other content. Musk himself leaked that he had around 25,000 subscribers last month or only 0.018 percent of the roughly 136.4 million followers he had at the time.
Musk has since announced that Linda Yaccarino, a former ad executive with NBCUniversal, would be coming on board to replace Musk as CEO. This move was ostensibly made to help turn the tide regarding Twitter's issues with advertisers. However, Musk has made it clear that he will stay on board at Twitter regardless. It will be interesting to see what direction Twitter's valuation moves in the coming months.
What is social media market research and why is it valuable?
Social media market research is the practice of gathering historical and real-time data from social media channels to improve your business. It gives you critical insights from qualitative data (comments and posts) and quantitative metrics (likes and shares).
While it can be done natively, intelligent tools driven by artificial intelligence, like Sprout, make the process of gathering social intelligence:
Cost-effective: It’s more affordable than traditional methods like surveys and focus groups that can cost thousands of dollars depending on the size and complexity of the research project.
Quick: Where traditional market research takes time, social media updates in real-time for immediate results, anytime you want.
Comprehensive: With over 4.76 billion social media users in 2023, gather vast and diverse social listening data to analyze conversations and extract more accurate insights about your brand and the entire industry.
Sprout enables you to research different social platforms at the same time and analyze the information in one centralized platform to inform data-driven marketing strategies across the organization.
The benefits of using social media for market research
According to The Harris Poll data in The 2023 State of Social Media report, 90% of business leaders agree that their company’s success will depend on how effectively it can use social media data and insights to inform business strategy.
Social media market research is the tool that will enable you to harness the data that will transform every part of your business, including:
Becoming more customer-centric
Our report also revealed that 91% of business leaders said social insights had an impact on gaining a better understanding of their customers. The granular insight social media marketing research provides into your consumer base helps you develop customer-centric strategies that build stronger relationships, increase retention and improve your growth rate.
Managing brand reputation
Social media research gives you data-driven insights into how your target audience perceives your brand. That’s why 94% of business leaders look at social media insights to build and manage brand reputation.
Keeping ahead of competitors
Ninety-two percent of business leaders say social media insights help improve their brand’s competitive positioning. Social data taps into deep competitor insights, such as what people like about competing brands and how customers respond to them. All of which guide how you can differentiate yourself from the pack.
Predicting future trends and filling market gaps
Market research through social listening helps you know where consumers are going next, per 89% of business leaders, who said that social insights impacted how they predict future trends. Social media market research gives you a holistic view of the market so you can identify emerging trends and plan long-term and short-term growth campaigns. And so, enabling you to take advantage of market gap opportunities and expand your market share in a focused way.
Optimizing your business with less spend
Seventy-six percent of business leaders say that social media insights have positively impacted moving their businesses forward with reduced budgets. With close to five billion people on social media, it provides a cost-effective way to magnify your brand, engage with customers and reach out to new audiences. It helps brands personalize campaigns and customer care more precisely and at scale.
8 insights you can glean from social media market research
Social listening data is a valuable source of market intelligence. But with all that raw data at your disposal, it can be challenging to sift through the noise to capture what is truly important and can make a real impact on your business strategy.
Here are eight actionable insights you should pull from your social media market research and how to find them.
1. Audience intent to know what customers want
Social media market research gives you valuable insights into customer intent when they mention you or your competitors. Deep dive into social listening data to get to know your audience on a personal level, from how they feel about certain topics to what influences their purchase decisions.
How to find it: Build out your community management strategy using social networks. Also, leverage platforms like Reddit to know what your audience is talking about and respond to threads directly. Capabilities like Sprout’s social media engagement tool help you capture customer sentiment from social listening across networks and seamlessly adjust your social strategy accordingly, in one place.
2. How customers use your products and services
Social media chatter gives you an insider’s look into how your customers are using your product and services and what new opportunities are out there for you.
By researching their brand and products through social listening, Lodge Cast Iron learned how customers actually use their cookware. They discovered a new segment of customers, vegans, which led them to create more vegan recipes to better engage with them and their interests.
How to find: Search for your brand and the name of your product on social platforms like Twitter or Instagram to learn how customers actually use your goods and services. Sites like Reddit are also great to tap into customer feedback, including conversations and communities relevant to your brand or products. With a tool like Sprout Social, you can easily monitor all this data including branded keywords and phrases to stay up to date with what customers have to say.
3. What existing customers like and dislike about your brand
Social media listening tools help you understand what people like and dislike about your product and services. In fact, business leaders surveyed by The Harris Poll said that 42% of their company’s product development is influenced by social media data insights.
Customer comments are often not as simple as “I like [brand]” or “I don’t like [brand]”. Some are indirect, don’t tag your handle or misspell your brand name. Analyze all comments through sentiment analysis with a smart social media intelligence platform like Sprout to get a clear idea of what customers expect from you and distinct insights on how to address them.
How to find: There are several ways you can find feedback about your brand. Search for branded keywords and phrases organically on social, or peruse the reviews section on platforms like Facebook, TripAdvisor and Google. Beyond these searches, your inbox is a great space to find customer feedback. It’s also a good idea to reach out to sales or customer service teams who hear directly from customers about their likes and dislikes.
4. Competitor intelligence to know where you stand
Insights from social media market research guide your competitor strategy for both short-term and long-term campaigns. In fact, 92% of marketers in The 2023 State of Social Media report say that social insights play a role in improving their brand’s competitive positioning.
Understand your competitors’ content and ad strategy, track how the market responds to them and know where you are in terms of audience segmentation.
How to find: Identify your competitors and monitor their social presence across their different social channels. With Sprout Social, you can set up a competitive analysis report across various social networks including review websites, like Google My Business, to track competitor benchmarks and understand your customers’ attitudes toward the competition.
5. What customers expect from you in the future
Consumers frequently take to social to share what they want from brands in the future. A brand may receive a request for a future store location or a coffee company might see comments asking for a specific roast or drink to come back on the menu. At Sprout, we often field Tweets from customers with new feature requests that we pass along to our product team for consideration down the road.
Another way to solicit feedback about what customers want from your brand is to simply ask. You’d be surprised how many people respond with their thoughts and ideas to a question published on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
How to find: One place to find this information is right in your inbox. With Sprout’s tagging capabilities, you can label and sort messages by type as they come through, making it easy to pass along product requests to the appropriate teams.
6. Trends your audience is interested in
Be attentive to market drivers and use them to catapult your brand strategy. Take how Netflix used the nostalgia marketing trend for their popular TV show, Stranger Things. The show capitalized on people’s fond memories of days past while using children as the main protagonists to cover a wide age segment.
To harness trends successfully, it’s important to map out your business objectives, data analysis plans and baseline metrics before you start scrolling for inspiration.
How to find: Explore social media networks and other tools like Google Trends to keep a pulse on what’s hot. Also, use Sprout’s listening tool to identify trends and topics in your industry and among customers through keywords. Uncover keywords and terms most used by your target audience and discover related topics frequently mentioned with any terms you’re currently tracking.
7. What content resonates with your audience
With millions of posts published on social daily, you need to be strategic to capture your audience’s attention. Take stock of your existing content to see what themes or content formats fuel your performance goals.
If in-feed video gets you more impressions than text posts, consider investing more in video production. If your goal is to drive conversations, refer to posts with high engagement (likes, comments or shares). And don’t be afraid to ask your audience directly what topics or social content they want to see from you.
How to find: Sprout’s Post Performance Report helps you break down the types of content you’ve published and identify which performed the best. For more granular insights, sort the data by impressions, engagement and clicks to determine what formats and themes are most effective on specific networks.
8. Find who to partner with
Social media market research helps you find the right influencers or content creators to collaborate with. Insights can tell you if they match your brand values, have similar audience types and create content that consistently engages. Your co-creators can also play a key role in product development to expand your reach.
For example, Target offered influencer Tabitha Brown a first-of-its-kind deal following her first year working with the retailer. Their exclusive Tabitha Brown collections include clothing, swimwear, accessories, home and office products, food and kitchenware.
How to find: Monitor collaborations to see how their content is performing and get insights to make tweaks to remain aligned with goals. Also, track your lead conversions and see if you are getting enough return on investment (ROI).
How to share social media market research findings org-wide
Social insights provide rich insights that benefit the whole org including product teams, customer care, sales and support.
To share your findings with these various teams, your data needs to present a holistic narrative and connect your data to company goals to highlight its true impact, without being complicated. This type of strategic data storytelling requires effective visualization elements like charts, graphs and word clouds that synthesize the data alongside other business intelligence. This enables all stakeholders to understand the larger picture, with insights from every key business channel.
Sprout creates presentation-ready charts and graphs that break down customer, competitor and industry insights from across social networks. Also, combine these insights with your Tableau data for a more comprehensive omnichannel view.
With these combined insights you can:
Track social KPIs org-wide and measure against benchmarks.
Share crucial product experience insights with the product development teams.
Inform marketing teams of any negative brand buzz.
Collaborate with the broader marketing teams to refine messaging and content marketing strategies.
Better research starts with social
When brands demonstrate they understand their customers’ wants and needs, they stand to strengthen their bottom line and develop customers for life. Thanks to social media market research, brands have access to fast and reliable insights that deepen their understanding of what their customers want and expect. From identifying new opportunities to improving customer relationships, data from social empowers you to make smarter decisions that contribute to your business goals.
Ready to turn your social data into valuable insights about your industry and customers? Download this worksheet to learn how to conduct quick and valuable market research in under 90 minutes.
Parler banned Smocks after calling for violence in the wake of the insurrection on January 6, 2021. "Over the next 24 hours, I would say lets [sic] get our personal affairs in order. Prepare our weapons, and then go get'em," he posted on January 7. "Lets hunt these cowards down like the Traitors that each of them are. This includes RINOS, Dems, and Tech Execs. We now have the green light."
In October 2021, Smocks pled guilty to a felony count of making interstate threats, and was convicted. Now, as first reported by Gizmodo, Smocks is suing Parler for banning him following the comments. The complaint claims Parler banned him for his political views and support of Donald Trump, violating a Texas law that prohibits platforms from banning users based on political beliefs. Specifically, he is suing Parler, former CEO John Matze, and right-wing billionaire Rebekah Mercer, who co-founded the platform.
The lawsuit doesn't make mention of the threats Smocks made on Parler, and the Texas law cited makes an exception for speech that "directly incites criminal activity or consists of specific threats of violence," Gizmodo reports.
Matze told Gizmodo he hasn't been officially served in the lawsuit and hadn't heard of Smocks before the case. He said, "From what I read, I feel like he is having trouble accepting his own life choices and is looking to put the blame on others."
"Twitter needs to become by far the most accurate source of information about the world," Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted last November, shortly after acquiring the company. "That’s our mission."
Earlier this month, Musk reiterated that Twitter is "hell bent on being the least untrue source of information."
However, according to European Commissioner Thierry Breton, Twitter just removed itself from the European Union's voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation, a pact that other social media platforms have already agreed to.
Twitter first entered into the voluntary EU Code back in 2018, as TechCrunch points out. However, that code soon won't be voluntary as it was added to a recently enacted EU law.
"You can run but you can’t hide," tweeted Breton, confirming Twitter's exit.
"Beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under #DSA as of August 25," Breton continued. "Our teams will be ready for enforcement."
The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), which Breton referred to in his tweet, among other things, puts strict rules on 19 "very large online platforms" or VLOPs. Twitter is among one of these 19 platforms, which also includes Google, Microsoft, Tiktok, and Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram.
"Platforms must mitigate against risks such as disinformation or election manipulation, cyber violence against women, or harms to minors online," reads the official European Commission website regarding the DSA.
If any of these platforms don't comply, they face rather large fines as high as 6 percent of their annual global turnover. Noncompliance can also lead to the platform being blocked in the EU.
Since Musk has taken over Twitter, the platform has opened back up the doors for various conspiracy theorists and disinformation spreaders. When asked about falsehoods on the platform, Musk has often referred to Community Notes, a Twitter feature where users submit corrections to be voted on, as his defense. However, that hasn't stopped Musk himself from spreading conspiracy theories to his more than 140 million followers on Twitter.
As EU Commissioner Breton mentioned in his tweet, Twitter has until late August to comply.
Too little, too late. Or really, still too much and also too late. That's the sentiment among startup founders and indie developers when it comes to Twitter's newly announced API plans meant for startups.
On Thursday, Twitter announced a new paid API subscription tier called Twitter API Pro that the company claims is meant for "startups."
"Experiment, build, and scale your business with 1M Tweets per month, including our powerful real-time Filtered/Stream and Full Archive Search endpoints," the official Twitter Dev account tweeted when announcing the plan.
The cost of this new supposedly startup-friendly API plan? A whopping $5,000 per month.
Many did not take this new "more affordable" pricing tier news well.
"I don't know who this plan is for," tweeted one Twitter user.
"Idk what kind of 'startup' you think wants to spend 5x the cost of their entire infrastructure on your overpriced data," tweeted another.
New API plan won't revive what Twitter killed
Developers have been waiting with bated breath for months now, after Elon Musk acquired the company and decided to end free API access and started charging a minimum of $42,000 per month for Enterprise access. The company also unveiled a $100 per month plan at the time, meant for "students" and "hobbyists," but most developers found that tier so limiting that they couldn't run their apps using it.
Twitter first announced the API pricing changes back in February. Then, more than two months ago, the company started shutting off access and forcing the paid subscription plans.
Developers had tried to reason with Twitter, using the platform to explain how this new model will kill the third-party ecosystem. One private Slack group for Twitter app creators quickly grew to nearly 900 members. According to multiple developers in that chat, they had personally reached out to Twitter and tried to negotiate a model that could work for both parties.
Twitter wouldn't budge. The entry point for API access was $42,000.
So, many were left with a choice: somehow pay at least $42,000 per month to Twitter or close up shop. Very few third-party Twitter-based platforms were making enough money to even afford that pricing, so many indie developers and founders were forced to choose the latter.
Others shared similar experiences in the replies to @TwitterDev.
"Too late…we’ve already canceled our twitter services," replied one user to Twitter's new API announcement.
One indie developer, Tony Dinh was in the midst of successfully growing his Twitter app, BlackMagic.so, when Twitter changed the API terms. Even though he was making tens of thousands of dollars per month from subscriptions, he would have still been operating at a loss under the $42,000 per month API plan. So, he sold his app earlier this month.
"Already sold @blackmagic_so 😂," tweeted Dinh upon hearing the news about the API Pro plan. "Well, at least I did what I thought was the most responsible thing I could do at the time as a business owner 🤷♂️"
So, while there's likely a sliver of app creators who will benefit from this new $5,000 per month plan, most are still left in the lurch. Those who could've made it work had to reconfigure their plans and moved on months ago. Others are still priced out.
"The only people this helps are the apps who can now safely downgrade from $42k/m," tweeted Dan Rowden, a developer who had to completely alter the direction of his Twitter analytics startup. "Still no plans that indie makers or brand new tools can use. This doesn't help the ecosystem."
Twitter API model a mess at every price point
Twitter's new exorbitantly-priced API model has caused quite a few headaches for the company as well as its former clients.
A new report from The Independent found that researchers who once paid for an academic tier of API pricing, which no longer exists, are being told to pay up for the new $42,000 tier or delete the data they had received from when they were a paying subscriber. Twitter was even forcing the fee upon public service and public safety accounts like the National Weather Service and the MTA, before the blowback forced them to reverse course on charging for those specific use cases. Even bigger companies like Microsoft, Intercom, and WordPress' parent company Automattic decided to pass on Twitter's new pricing structure for API access and removed Twitter integrations from its platforms.
At this stage, Twitter has to do more than just find the sweet spot in pricing for all the various types of users of its API. It will need to rebuild trust with developers, so that they don't waste precious time and resources on building for a platform that's going to just turn on them again. And based on how many of these indie developers and founders feel, it may be too late for Twitter to do so.
YouTube viewers are used to YouTube Stories expiring after seven days. Next month though, YouTube Stories will be going away for good.
On June 26, YouTube will officially sunset its YouTube Stories feature. Beginning on that Monday, users will no longer be able to create YouTube Stories. Any story created before that date will expire as normal, 7 days after the story was created, meaning there will no longer be any YouTube Stories viewable starting the following Monday, July 3.
YouTube explained that the reason its dropping YouTube Stories was so that it could focus on its other, more popular recent features. The company specifically focused on its shortform video feature, YouTube Shorts, as well as Community posts. The platform recently rolled out Community posts to all YouTube channels, as it was formerly a feature that was only activated after a channel accumulated 1,000 subscribers.
"Today, there are many ways to create on YouTube – from Community posts to Shorts, to long-form and Live," YouTube announced in a post in its community forum. "To prioritize these key features, Stories are going away.
"While Stories are going away, we’ve seen that both Community posts and YouTube Shorts are great alternatives that can deliver valuable audience connections and conversations," the announcement continued.
Much like how YouTube Shorts is the company's answer to TikTok's dominance in the shortform video space, YouTube Stories was the platform's response to Instagram's popular Stories feature. YouTube Stories began rolling out to some creators in 2018 and officially launched in 2019.
The feature allowed creators with at least 10,000 subscribers to create ephemeral short video compilations that appeared on subscribers' home page. YouTube Stories lasted for 7 days before expiring, much like how Instagram Stories are temporary.
However, on YouTube, Stories never really took off. At least, not when compared to other features.
According to YouTube, creators who used both YouTube Shorts and YouTube Stories found that Shorts drove "many more" subscribers than Stories did.
YouTube also mentioned that Community posts, which again is now more broadly available, drives better interaction with subscribers. The company recently rolled out a feature that enables Community posts to expire after 24 hours too, in case there are creators who will miss the ephemeral nature of Stories.
While there will certainly be users who miss the YouTube Stories feature, it's a good thing to sometimes shut down lesser-used features so the platform doesn't get bogged down with too many confusing options, which in turn could drive less traffic to videos and channels.
However, with all that said, it is still interesting to see YouTube's official Twitter account, @TeamYouTube, tell a user that YouTube Stories is "slowly rolling out to more creators" just two days ago.
Ever since Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, it's become clear that he's obsessed with metrics. In December of last year, he had Twitter add public "view count" metrics to tweets. Public "bookmark counts" were added to tweets in March.
But now, it appears that Twitter is removing one of its most important metrics: Video view counts.
MultipleTwitterusers, including the author of this piece, have noticed that videos on Twitter are no longer displaying how many times they've been viewed. This metric was previously publicly available to all users.
It's unclear if this move is intentional, as Twitter has recently updated its video player to include playback speed and a picture-in-picture style mini-player. However, some users have reported noticing the missing view counts more than a week ago.
As of now, video view counts have been removed from the Twitter for iOS app as well as the Twitter website. As of publishing, video view counts can still be seen on Twitter for Android.
If the video view count metrics removal is indeed on purpose, this would make Twitter the least transparent social media platform when it comes to video. Every other major video platform, from YouTube to Facebook to TikTok, shows its users how many views a video has received. It's also an extremely important metric for advertisers, as this helps them decide how to run ad campaigns on these platforms.
The removal of this metric forces users to depend on a different one that often paints videos uploaded to Twitter as more successful than the clips actually are.
As previously mentioned, Twitter does show "tweet views," but that's just the number of impressions on a tweet. As tweets are regularly recommended by Twitter's algorithm, users are often served content they don't necessarily have any interest in. If such a tweet has a video embedded in it and the user does not play the clip, then the tweet view count does not accurately reflect how many users actually watched the video.
A perfect example of such a discrepancy in these two counts can be seen on Republican presidential primary candidate Ron DeSantis' campaign announcement video. The DeSantis campaign is boasting about 15 million views on their announcement video. But, that's the tweet view count metric. Android users, who are still able to view the more accurate video view count, can see that the actual video has only received just over 4 million views. (It's also important to note that Twitter counts a video view as just 2 seconds of playtime.)
Musk has centered video on the platform in recent months, as attempts to monetize Twitter via subscription-based services have fallen short. The company has been experimenting with bringing back its standalone live streaming app, Periscope. Last week, Musk announced that Twitter Blue subscribers could now upload videos that are up to 2-hours long.
Twitter's newfound interest in being a video platform has attracted some media properties, particularly right-wing media. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced he would be launching a show on the platform. The Daily Wire also announced that it would be uploading its longform video podcasts, featuring conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh, directly to Twitter as well.
How well Twitter's pivot to video goes is anyone's guess, especially with the removal of video view counts.
Hot take: mastering social media is what sets businesses today apart.
Competition is fierce among brands and attention is scarce. Establishing an identity and sense of community via social is key to standing out.
Not to mention attracting valuable new customers.
Done right, a goal-driven social strategy means positive results for your business. Countless brands have been built from the ground up via Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
Wrangling your social media strategy can be daunting with so many moving pieces. This is especially true if you’re totally new to the space. We get it.
That’s why we put together this post breaking down the basics of social media for business.
“Okay, so why is social media important for business?”
Good question! A decade ago, the upsides of social media for business were tougher to quantify.
Thankfully, times have changed and ROI is no longer a question mark. Let’s be crystal clear:
Social media is valuable for businesses of any size or industry. Finding customers on social media has a direct impact on sales and your bottom line.
Building awareness. Nurturing leads and driving sales. Community-building.
The list goes on given that the benefits of social media aren’t one-size-fits-all. That said, here are five upsides that brands can see from a smart social presence.
Like it or not, social media has become a go-to research channel for consumers at large.
Think about your own experience looking up businesses.
Chances are you’ve visited a restaurant’s Facebook to confirm their hours. Maybe you’ve combed a company’s IG content and comments to see if their products live up to the hype. This highlights how social media builds awareness for brands in a way that your website can’t.
Your business’ social presence is a powerful touchpoint with new customers. That’s because social media serves as an authentic reflection of what a company is all about.
Comments and shout-outs from satisfied customers speak volumes about your business. If someone’s first impression of your business is a glowing social review, that’s a huge plus.
Create a meaningful connection with your customers
It’s no exaggeration to say that social media serves as a Swiss Army Knife for customer support.
For reference, many brands use their social presence to…
Answer questions from potential customers
Handle concerns from existing customers
Celebrate and welcome new customers
Gather feedback from your target audience
Channels like Facebook and Instagram are a timely alternative to email or chatbots. These channels also offer opportunities to personalize your responses and build connections. Going back and forth with your customers via comments can leave a lasting impression.
Show off your products (and what makes them compelling)
From testimonials to tutorials and beyond, social media is a prime place to show off products.
As noted in the Sprout Social Index™, the most popular types of posts teach people how products work. For example, an IG Reel or TikTok can educate a potential customer in a matter of seconds. Contrast this with static photos and traditional product descriptions.
Formats such as short-form video empower brands to bring their products to life. Bonus points if you can feature real people and satisfied customers in your content.
Increase your brand’s visibility and reach
Recent demographics show us that people are spending hours per day on social media, not just a few minutes here and there.
This highlights the value of businesses having an established social presence. Many potential customers will see your brand’s Facebook or IG before they see your website.
Look no further than the rise of social search as evidence of this. Trends and research say that young consumers treat social media like a search engine.
The more word of mouth your business earns, the easier it is for your audience to find you. This applies to social searchers and potential customers alike.
Gather real-time insights to make data-driven business decisions
Social media marketing for business is about so much more than promotion.
Consider how you can use analytics to research the following in real-time:
Audience pain points
Competitor messaging and content
Sentiment analysis (and how people feel about your brand)
The most popular types of products and content among your follow
The latest trends in your industry
And that only scratches the surface!
From your audience to competitors, there’s no better place to conduct market research. That’s because social media is a treasure trove of data points that are all out in the open.
Setting social media goals for your business
The benefits of using social media for business speak for themselves.
That said, achieving them doesn’t happen by accident. That’s why goal-setting is so important.
Keep in mind that social media goals> are unique as they’re totally dependent on your business. Also, you can set multiple goals that actually overlap and influence each other. Goals affect everything from your content strategy to the social platforms you use.
Setting social media goals for business
There’s no “right” way to set goals but the process can be a lot. A few tips to get you started:
Start with the big picture before getting granular.Why does your business need a social presence? What resources do you need to make those results a reality?
Look at your target audience andcustomer personas. For example, how are your customers using social media? Is your audience glued to TikTok or Instagram? What types of content do they want to see? Brainstorm how using social media for business can help you reach your audience.
Think about your business’ holistic marketing strategy and how social media fits in.
Tie your social media goals to actual metrics andKPIs. This is a big one in an era where marketers are under pressure to prove ROI. From engagement to traffic and beyond, there’s plenty to track.
Sample B2B social media goals and KPIs
Brand awareness (growth, engagements) and consideration (link clicks, web traffic)
Lead generation (marketing qualified leads)
Competitor analysis (share of voice) and market share
Customer service efficiencies (engagement speed and rates)
Reputation management
Customer satisfaction
Positive reviews
Customer sentiment online
Sample B2C social media goals and KPIs
Brand awareness (growth, engagements) and consideration (link clicks, web traffic)
Find new sales opportunities (conversations to join)
Uncover brand expansion opportunities
Reputation management (engaging with inbound messages)
Increase customer satisfaction
Inspire customer loyalty
Product launch analysis
Competitive analysis
Create a social media strategy for business
Let’s say you have your goals squared away.
Remember: effectively using social media for business means having a plan. Posting at random won’t do you any favors. Without a strategy, your social presence can quickly become a time-sink.
No pressure, right? Mapping your social media marketing strategy doesn’t have to be daunting. To keep your focus and avoid getting overwhelmed, here’s what we suggest you focus on:
Ensure social goals solve challenges
Extend social marketing efforts throughout your organization
Focus on networks that add value
Create engaging content
Identify business opportunities through social
Engage instead of ignore
Track, improve and market your effort
If you focus on these points, you’ll already be way ahead of the curve.
Follow these 5 social media tips for business
There’s no shortage of social media tips out there to help you fine-tune your strategy.
Some best practices related to social media for business are relative. Below are five universal tips that are fair game for companies of all shapes and sizes.
1. Build a human, people-first social presence
This might seem like a no-brainer.
That said, busy businesses tend to get stuck in a “copy-and-paste” approach to social. Comments and social captions should feel like they were written by a real person, not a robot.
Injecting personality into your posts is a low-hanging way to relate to your audience. Beyond that, personalizing your replies to people shows that you’re there to help them. This is an example of how to use social media for business to build connections.
2. Look at your social presence as a resource (not just a promotional channel)
Don’t make the mistake of treating your social presence as a dumping ground for offers. Building an audience means being genuinely helpful, not salesy.
Many of the best practices across social media treat their accounts as resources. That means:
Answering questions and sharing advice with your audience
Sharing company updates and keeping customers in the loop (see below)
Imagine that your social accounts are your first touchpoint with a potential customer. Sharing resources makes a better first impression than screaming “BUY NOW!”
3. Show up consistently
This applies to both publishing content and engaging with customers.
Conventional wisdom says that social media algorithms reward consistency. Sprout’s own research on the best times to post on social media confirms this. If nothing else, letting your social feeds gather cobwebs isn’t a good look.
Neither is leaving your followers hanging. Making a conscious effort to reply to questions and comments is crucial. This is why you need to keep a close eye on your @tags and social notifications.
4. Be prepared to experiment with different types of content
Brands are spoiled for choice when it comes to the types of content they can post.
Below are two examples of brands with diverse social feeds in terms of content.
From short-form videos to Stories and slideshows, you have plenty of options. Different industries and types of brands thrive on different types of content.
That said, don’t make assumptions when it comes to what performs best.
Just because a competitor posts a bunch of memes doesn’t mean you should follow suit. Let your own analytics and engagement guide your content strategy.
5. Don’t treat your social presence like an island
Social media shouldn’t be a siloed channel separate from the rest of your marketing efforts.
From announcements to offers and company initiatives, social can be in the middle of it all. For example, a feature rollout isn’t something a SaaS brand should restrict to its email list. These sorts of updates should be front and center on social, too.
A more holistic approach to social media marketing for business is ideal. In turn, you maximize your marketing assets elsewhere and see a greater ROI for your efforts.
Use social media marketing tools for businesses
Good news: you’re not expected to do everything totally DIY when building your presence.
There’s no shortage of social media marketing tools out there to help with the heavy lifting. Depending on your needs, you might consider investing in a combo of the following:
Scheduling tools that allow you to queue up content across multiple platforms
Analytics tools that measure content performance and engagement (see Sprout Social below)
Listening and monitoring tools that make it easier to track audience conversations
Remember: the purpose of these tools should be to make you more productive. A big challenge in building any sort of marketing stack is redundancies. It’s easy to invest in tools that overlap. This results in brands burning through their budgets and needlessly bouncing between platforms.
Uncover social analytics and reporting for business
The more opportunities to consolidate your tools, the better. Working with fewer tools means squeezing the most out of what you have. Also, you save a ton of time onboarding.
The less bouncing between tools, the better. This speaks to the value of an all-in-one social media management platform like Sprout.
With Sprout, brands access a comprehensive suite of social tools and analytics. For example, the platform makes it a cinch to map out your content calendar across platforms. This is a shining example of how to save time and avoid bouncing between tools.
Sprout’s analytics and dashboards encourage a goal-driven approach to social media for business. Advanced analytics means fewer question marks and a better understanding of your presence. This includes your top-performing content and social channels.
In short, you have a constant pulse on what’s working, what’s not and what you should do next.
Involve your C-Suite and employees to amplify your business
As noted earlier, social media shouldn’t be treated as an island.
This applies to your own team as well. The sooner you’re able to get approval and buy-in from your C-Suite, the better. Brand-building through employee advocacy is another way to use social media for business.
Employee advocacy is the promotion of a brand by its employees on social media. Instead of solely promoting products, advocates promote a company at large. This means:
Sharing behind-the-scenes experiences about work life
Celebrating team members and workplace accomplishments
Amplify company messages and promotions
Chances are you’ve seen your fair share of employee advocacy in action on LinkedIn.
Again, the crowded nature of social media means anything you can do to stand out is a plus. Advocacy is an opportunity to boost your company’s profile and exposure via social.
Work on a corporate communication plan
One last pointer for anyone on the enterprise level.
The power of social media as a communication channel shouldn’t be taken lightly. Brands have the opportunity to reach massive audiences at a moment’s notice. This applies to customers, industry leaders and competitors alike.
The stakes are high for large companies with significant audiences and stakeholders. That’s why having a corporate communication plan is crucial. In short, you need to establish rules for:
Internal communication, including employee engagement and internal marketing
External communication, including PR and how you speak to the public
Executive communication (ex: how the C-level discusses your company on social media)
Crisis communication to deal with controversies and damage control situations
Having all of the above squared away empowers brands to have consistent messaging. Likewise, you can avoid miscommunication and countless public headaches in the process.
Going beyond the basics of social media for business
An active social presence is an expectation, not an exception for companies today.
The tips and best practices above serve as a solid foundation. With the right goals and mentality, social media can have a positive impact on your business.
Building a results-driven social media presence is so much easier with a platform like Sprout. From content to trend analysis and beyond, Sprout empowers brands to build their presence with confidence. If you haven’t already, test-drive a free trial of Sprout Social to see the full suite in action for yourself!
Have you ever wondered what subscription services your friends pay for? No, we're not talking mainstream streaming platforms like Disney+ or mundane online cloud services like Google One. What if you knew the weird things your friends are paying for?
Well, Twitter just made a version of that possible on its platform. Twitter has a feature called "Subscriptions," which allows users to pay a monthly fee to their favorite Twitter creators in exchange for exclusive, paywalled tweets. The feature is not new. It has existed since 2021 as "Super Follows," but has taken new prominence as "Subscriptions" on the platform as Twitter owner Elon Musk has focused on growing subscription-based services.
But, this week, Twitter did launch something new related to Subscriptions. Twitter has quietly rolled out a new metric feature on the platform that shows exactly who users are paying to subscribe to.
If a user pays to subscribe to a Twitter creator using the Subscriptions feature, a Subscriptions metric will appear on their profile alongside their Following and Followers count.
As of May 24, Elon Musk subscribes to 75 users via Twitter's Subscriptions feature.Credit: Mashable screenshot
For example, looking at Elon Musk's Twitter account, his profile shows that he is paying to subscribe to 75 Twitter accounts. Among the accounts he's subscribed to include a few meme accounts, a handful of Tesla fan accounts, and a multitude of right wing personalities such as LibsofTikTok, Ian Miles Cheong, and the conservative "satire" website The Babylon Bee.
Making this metric public is certainly an interesting move from Twitter. Musk has been promoting the Subscriptions feature pretty prominently in recent months. In a screenshot posted to his account in late April, Musk revealed that he had nearly 25,000 users paying to subscribe to his account through Subscriptions. Shortly after that, Ryan Mac of the New York Times reported on an internal email Musk sent Twitter employees urging them to subscribe to creators and then expense it back to the company.
However, based on dozens of Twitter accounts viewed by Mashable, Musk's 75 subscriptions appears to be a major outlier if not the outright most creators that a single user has subscribed to.
Another issue with this new metric is that there doesn't appear to be a way to opt-out of showing who a user subscribes to. Twitter does provide this option when it comes to the subscriber label that shows up when a user replies to a tweet from a creator to whom they are subscribed.
And being that the metric was suddenly added, it seems possible that some users were caught off-guard at sharing that they've subscribed to accounts that they don't necessarily want publicized. For example, Twitter's subscribed-based features have proven to be quite popular with sex workers. Twitter users who subscribe to their favorite adult-oriented accounts, may not want that information publicly showcased on their profile page.
One surprising subscription that Mashable came across, for example, showed that "resistance" liberal influencer Ed Krassenstein was paying to subscribe to right-wing commentator Tomi Lahren's account.
It appears like the major privacy issues have been pushed aside in order to get this metric out in hopes that it will promote the Subscription feature. Yet the new Subscriptions metric seems to just showcase that another one of Musk's subscription-based Twitter features has struggled to take off.
Social media is like a 24/7 town hall meeting—news spreads, crises unfold and important questions emerge in real time. It’s a direct line to your residents and constituents, who expect you to be active and ready to engage on topics that are most important to them.
It’s no longer an anomaly to see public sector accounts going viral. But managing the social media presence of a government agency comes with a unique set of challenges. Complex platform security and governance requirements. Staff who balance multiple responsibilities beyond social. Ever-evolving strategies that can shift overnight.
Choosing the right social media tools for government agencies and other public sector organizations is a non-negotiable part of proactively reaching and engaging your citizens, saving your team valuable time, creating internal visibility and, ultimately, serving your community better. Use the criteria shared in this article to help your team harness the full power of social.
4 things to look for when evaluating social media tools for government entities
Investing in an intuitive social media management platform is an essential step toward building a strong relationship with your constituents. Yet, many agencies only use native tools to manage their accounts—leaving valuable insights and opportunities to connect untapped. Less than half of public sector entities use software to manage or execute their social media strategy, according to ArchiveSocial. The report also revealed agencies not being able to centrally manage their entire presence is the fastest-growing detriment to success on social.
Yet, not all social media management platforms are created equal. When evaluating social tools to help your agency make waves on social, look for one that:
1. Gives your team time back
Like in many industries, managing government social media is more than a 40 hour per week job, especially when staff members juggle other disciplines like communications, PR, digital marketing, content and more. This not only puts teams at risk of burnout, but prevents agencies from maximizing their presence on social and forming stronger relationships with their citizens and communities.
By using a centralized platform like Sprout Social, you’re enabled to make quick work of delivering social content, so your team can focus on engaging your constituents and refining your creative strategy. A recently commissioned Total Economic Impact™ study conducted by Forrester Consulting found that Sprout’s tools helped a composite organization representative of interviewed customers drive $973,000 in social media team productivity and efficiency savings over three years, and a 55% increase in year 3.
Here a few Sprout highlights that help teams collaborate more effectively:
Shared calendar: Plan your strategy and maintain oversight from a central hub rather than disparate apps or spreadsheets. Organize posts across profiles, networks and campaigns using a visualized calendar to support a long-term strategy. For example, you can map out your posts for the upcoming week and month to assure your content lines up with priority community events.
Publishing and scheduling: Boost collaboration between staff and increase productivity with campaign planning tools, automated workflows, and scheduling and monitoring tools. Automatically publish your content at the times most likely to reach constituents and receive real-time engagement updates.
Message Approval Workflows: With internal and external approver features, ensure content is always approved and compliant with your agency’s communication guidelines—all within the Sprout platform.
2. Puts you in control of crisis management
Whether it’s important local events, public safety emergencies or otherwise, crises are an unavoidable part of government social media efforts. Teams need to be able to pivot their publishing quickly, respond to a surge in inbound messages and be proactive to avoid misinformation from spreading.
Stay on the pulse of social media conversations trending in your constituency to prevent minor risks from spiraling into large-scale crises. When evaluating social media tools for government use, look for powerful social listening and audience engagement solutions that do the heavy lifting for you.
The Sprout platform enables you to stop a crisis in its tracks. We offer a suite of tools designed to help you perfect your crisis response strategy—from easily monitoring your incoming messages to zeroing in on key conversations happening online.
Pause All Content: In the face of a crisis, this feature enables you to pause all outgoing messages with one click—which saves you time and ensures your entire team is on the same page.
Message Spike Alerts: If your message volume spikes, that could be indicative of a looming crisis. These alerts automatically send email or mobile push notifications when incoming messages exceed your hourly average, so your team doesn’t have to manually monitor your inbox 24/7.
Social Listening: Sprout’s artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technology can help you gain critical intel about key public figures, trending misinformation and constituent concerns. The platform sifts through millions of social media data points in seconds, helping you access and share actionable findings with leadership and prominent government figures you work with.
3. Supports stronger, more meaningful citizen engagement
Your core mission is to serve your community—which includes serving them on their channel of choice: social media. To do so, you need to understand their preferences, concerns and communication needs, and be responsive and authentic when they reach out to you. Strengthen your citizen engagement by using social media tools that provide your team with valuable intelligence about your audience, and empower swift, proactive communication.
With Sprout’s platform, you can exceed your constituents’ expectations and deliver more tailored experiences on social media—while saving your team time. According to the Total Economic Impact™ study, for the composite organization, customer service specialists saved time equal to $142,000 over three years by using Sprout to respond to incoming messages and inquiries.
These Sprout tools are designed to help you foster connections with your citizens:
Smart Inbox: Unify your social channels into a single stream so you’re empowered to monitor incoming messages, cultivate conversations and respond to your audience quickly. By tagging and filtering messages, you can prioritize what’s most important and discover unique engagement opportunities. Built-in collision detection notifications make for seamless collaboration, so you can see who has replied to a message and prevent duplicative work
Brand Keywords: Often, people talk about your agency on social without tagging you directly. If you aren’t actively searching for these messages, you may miss important conversations. Brand Keywords are custom Twitter searches that constantly run and display results in your Smart Inbox, so you can see and respond to these highly relevant posts as easily as any other message. You can also set up alerts based on high priority or crisis keywords, so you’re always one step ahead.
Custom VIP lists: Within the Smart Inbox, you can add the VIP label next to the avatar of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn users who messaged you. This feature helps you track correspondences with key players in your constituency, like reporters, elected officials and business leaders.
Listening: In addition to helping you manage a crisis, Sprout’s social listening solution helps you keep up with relevant trending conversations and influential community leaders. The tools gather honest feedback about your agency’s performance on social and beyond. With these insights, you will be empowered to produce more meaningful content and ladder-up your learnings to decision makers.
4. Reshapes perception of what social can do
In the public sector, social is still largely misunderstood. Many hold onto the lingering belief that it does more harm than good, while others see it as a wild west of misinformation. The right tool will help your communications team quantify the impact of your social efforts and change the way your agency’s stakeholders see social media (even if they aren’t social savvy).
Using a social media management platform makes it easy to create clear reports that demonstrate how your social strategy translates to agency goals. For example, with Sprout’s Analytics tools, you can eliminate the time-consuming manual data collection processes in favor of automated, presentation-ready reports. The Total Economic Impact™ study found that Sprout eliminated manual data aggregation to prepare monthly reports by 75%, resulting in $39,000 in savings over three years.
By using Sprout, you can automatically generate:
Tag Reports: Access an overview of your inbound and outbound tagged messages to easily analyze campaign effectiveness, volume and performance patterns.
Post Performance Reports: Analyze cross-channel performance at the post level to understand what messaging and formats resonate with your constituents and why.
Profile Performance Reports: Access a high-level overview of performance across all connected profiles to quickly evaluate social growth, and how that growth correlates with key initiatives.
Find the right social media tools for your agency’s workflow
When evaluating social media tools for your government agency, to paraphrase JFK, don’t hesitate to ask what the tools will do for you. With the right social media management platform, you can do your best work more efficiently, proactively curb crises, create more time for citizen engagement and confidently demonstrate the value of social at your agency.
For a more comprehensive look at the value social media provides, download The Total Economic Impact™ of Sprout Social study, and learn how Sprout delivered a 233% return on investment over three years.
