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Sprout Social Process & Expectations

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Written by Rachel Cabatingan
Updated over a month ago

Process Owner: Hannah Halton

Last Updated: February 2025

SOP Linked: HERE

Overview:

Sprout Social is the analytics tool that the Organic Social team is using for reporting (monthly, quarterly, campaign, competitor, etc.), social listening, and community management and activation.

Each team member has access to the platform through a login they share with another team member. All account logins can be found here.

  • Please note: Sprout will log you out and ask for a 2FA code if another user is using your login on another device (keep this in mind if you’re sharing an account with someone!)

Using Sprout Social for Organic Social reporting and community engagement is MANDATORY! Our new process will be explained in detail throughout this doc.

Getting Started - Resources:

  • Sprout Social Learning Portal - your hub for all training courses, how-to’s, and webinars

    • All “courses” can be found HERE

  • Sprout Help Center - resources and articles to answer your questions

    • If you need timely support, you can Live Chat with their team - instructions HERE

  • Reporting Course - Getting Started with Sprout's Reporting Tools

  • Engagement Course - Getting Started with Sprout's Engagement Tools

  • Publishing Course - Getting to know your Publishing Tools

  • If you are interested in a dedicated training or would like a refresher, reach out to Hannah and we can set something up!

    • This also goes for new employees

New Client Process:

When onboarding a new client, adding their social profiles to Sprout Social MUST be done in the first few weeks (once you receive logins/access).

Adding new clients:

  • Use your login at sproutsocial.com

  • Create a NEW GROUP for each client - step by step process here (all clients must have their own group created to add clients to)

  • Connect your social profiles to your Client Group - step by step process here - ADD ALL PLATFORMS (you can even add review sites, Google My Business, and Google Analytics accounts)

Reporting Process:

All Organic Social strategists were required to have attended our live Reporting training with Sprout Social on in 2023 and new hires have this training during their first month at PDM. If you need a refresher, visit Sprout’s Reporting Course page or use the Help Center where needed.

Reporting process moving forward:

  • Each month, quarter, or as needed, strategists are required to use Sprout Social for all reporting needs

  • Our team will be using:

    • “Profiles by Network” reports for all platform-specific reporting

      • Use for weekly, monthly, quarterly, and YOY reporting - this will be the main reports we use

      • A few notes when it comes to the “Profiles by Network” reports:

        • These should have all major KPIs for reporting needs, but you can customize (add or remove) each report with specific insights if and where needed

          • Use the top right graph button (see below) to customize

        • You must manually calculate engagement rate - Sprout’s engagement rate is calculated by impressions, not followers!

          • Good news is - Sprout calculates everything else for you! Make sure to use your report for total engagements, total posts, and total followers!

    • “Cross-Network” reports only for all profile or specific campaign insights

    • “Custom Reports” - you are able to create a Custom report if you’d like, but note that customizing your “Profiles by Network” reports should do the trick!

      • You can learn more about custom reporting HERE and HERE

Community Management + Activation Process:

  • All Organic Social Community Managers are required to conduct community management on Sprout Social and appropriately tag, track, and manage any comms that come through via the platform. The recording can be found HERE.

    • Community Management Process Moving Forward:

      • Please note that responding natively does not mark notifications and DMs as read.

      • All Messages: Allow for you to see the amount of messages and mark messages in bulk to tag or clear. This is the fastest way to to retroactive housekeeping for tagging (ie: spam, shipping concerns, etc)

        • Be sure to turn off “sent messages”

        • This tab is for searching not responding

      • Custom Views: Meant for responding and creating workflows for community managers to use

        • Utilizing the “create new” button you can create custom filter sets/folders

          • Suggest creating network folders (ie: FB only, IG only, etc) and message types (ie: DM, comments etc- be sure to turn off completed and sent switches), and save + name it (Ie: Thirdlove_Facebook) and make it accessible to current group

          • Make one for each platform. You can also make it by message type (Ie: Thirdlove_facebook_dms or Thirdlove_facebook_ugc)

      • To Respond to Messages:

        • Every message will have an action (ie: hide comment, export, etc)

          • Sprout leaf: you can tag a team member for assistance

          • Tags: You can add labels (up to 20)

          • Checkmark: Done

          • To Reply: Click the little arrow on the far right and you can enter your reply through there

      • Reviews:

        • You can connect yelp, linkedin, glassdoor etc. You can respond, tag, etc directly through this section

      • Feeds:

        • You can follow specific hashtags , keywords, or competitors through this section. These keywords are all swappable

      • Reports:

        • Customer Care: Good for case management

        • Case Performance: For internal purposes to see what is being assigned

        • Inbox Activity: Perfect for reports, you can track our internal tags (ie: “negative”, “positive”, “Spam” etc) and message types, inbox volume, etc

Social Listening Process:

  • Please contact Hannah if you or your client is interested in this!

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