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Social relationship management services specialist Sprout Social announced the launch of its SRM platform, which offers the tools that businesses might need to effectively manage a multinetwork social media presence within a single user interface to bolster online brand marketing and promotions. The solution combines contact management and Web monitoring with integrated, automatic cross-posting to social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn and FourSquare, including message scheduling and geo-targeting.
The offering, which is currently available with a 30-day free trial, is supplemented with the added support of the Sprout Social: Insights blog that provides resources, education, tips and how-tos on social media management. The solution is offered in two tiers, Professional, aimed at designers, bloggers and trade professionals, and Business, for larger companies and Websites.
The Business package allows users to manage up to 10 identities or locations, offers a catalog of search agents, cross-platform engagement, message scheduling,??Ã??Ã and performance metrics and analytics. The plan is offered for $49 per month. The Professional package offers management of five identities; contact management; audience targeting; and Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Facebook pages. The Business package adds Yelp to that list.
“There are a multitude of tools out there that claim to make SRM easier for businesses, but the problem is none combine all of these important features into a single, integrated platform,” said Justyn Howard, CEO and co-founder of Sprout Social. “With Sprout Social, we’ve pulled together the most wanted, most powerful features into a comprehensive system that allows any size business to launch and manage a full-scale social media campaign from a single pane of glass.”
The interface includes discovery tools designed to help businesses find and target new customers on the Web with database logging and search capabilities. These capabilities allow users to target customers based on profile characteristics, including location, job roles, employer and demographic characteristics, as well as integrated social media monitoring and promotion scheduling and tracking, which generates performance metrics to help analyze the effectiveness of online promotions through click-through and referrals.
Howard said as the social media phenomenon continues to evolve into a tremendous marketing opportunity for businesses to reach a wide and engaged audience, many business owners and managers-especially small business owners-struggle to find the time to devote to social media, despite the potential. “Unfortunately, many businesses are missing valuable opportunities because they simply don’t have the resources to leverage this new media,” he said. “Sprout Social removes those barriers by making it easy, efficient and affordable for anyone-even a mom-and-pop small business-to manage a strong social media presence in just minutes a day.”