Whether founding our own brands and online communities or working behind-the-scenes to partner with creators and influencers, women are leading the way in shaping a more inclusive creator economy. By creating opportunities for ourselves and other creative entrepreneurs—or “creatorpreneurs”—we are building a space that is equitable and profitable.

Despite us dominating the content creation and influencer marketing conversation, men still outearn women when it comes to revenue from their businesses. According to ConvertKit, 35% of men earn over $100,000 from their businesses compared to 19% of women; additionally, men are twice as likely to earn over $150,000. The obvious pay gap and other challenges beg a discussion about how we can better support women making way for themselves in the creator economy.

To find out, I spoke to five women in the space who are carving their own paths and empowering other women to do the same.

The creator economy is the gateway to entrepreneurship

For many female creatives (particularly Gen Z), starting a business is an opportunity to reimagine what work looks and feels like. As cultural attitudes toward the traditional 9-to-5 have shifted toward a desire for autonomous and remote work, more creatives are looking for opportunities that make that lifestyle their reality. Over 50% of Gen Z individuals desire a job as an influencer (or creator) and see it as a respectable career choice, according to a Morning Consult study. Simply put, the creator economy allows women to secure our bags.

Qianna Smith Bruneteau, Founder of the American Influencer Council, has built a nonprofit that prepares female creators for entrepreneurial success through mentorship, small business development, educational resources and community.

“I started the American Influencer Council to support women creators. When I think about women starting their own businesses, influencer marketing feels like such a great segue into entrepreneurship. During the pandemic, we saw how brands couldn’t work with many production companies, so they turned to creators. Now, whether they are full-time or part-time, we’re seeing women transform and redefine the future of work.”

While more people see influencing, creating and entrepreneurship as viable career options, stigmas around the influencer role may still cause individuals to hesitate.

Tiffany Hardin, CEO of Gild Creative Group, an award-winning full-service influencer marketing firm, says that while that has been the case, a female influencer’s point of view and voice still matters because they bring financial value to businesses that other influencers may not be able to replicate.

“Influencer marketing, at its core, is about trust. Back in the day, people didn’t take mom bloggers seriously. Still, the companies that were [partnering with] mommy bloggers were getting paid big bucks to activate and mobilize those groups of women because they were trusted [by their communities]. We’re even seeing it now with the Stanley cup craze. There’s a direct correlation between women involved [in influencer marketing] and profit.”

Of course, as more women step into their creatorpreneur eras, monetization opportunities become a priority, whether through sponsorships, product and service offerings, e-commerce, or more. Knowing these income streams are essential to the success of their business, women are calling on marketers and brands to challenge gender biases, promote equal opportunities, and ensure fair compensation for all creators—regardless of gender.

The pay gap is a systemic issue

The pay gap—and its impact on women in and beyond the workplace—has become a topic of conversation across industries. When women are not valued or compensated fairly for their creative work compared to their male counterparts, it perpetuates systemic gender discrimination. While women make up the majority of the creator economy and influencer marketing space, economic disparities still make it difficult for women to have financial stability and advance their creative careers.

For Georgina Whalen, Influencer Marketing Expert and Consultant, early education is the key to closing the pay gap.

“It’s similar to other issues in the world and [the US] in particular. It’s a systemic issue that starts when we are very young in school or when we are given career guidance. Then it travels all the way to [the workplace] in hiring, promotions, or how we’re perceived when we’re negotiating. Until those systems are broken down and rebuilt, we’re only going to see incremental change.”

Georgina and many other women in the space feel that more conversations around the pay gap are needed to foster an environment of transparency in the creator economy. However, the responsibility of pay transparency falls on more than creators and influencers. It’s also the responsibility of individuals who partner with them. Christina Le, Social Media Manager at OpenPhone, has had first-hand experience.

“Women and girls have always been taught to portray themselves in a way that’s likable, whereas boys and men have audacity [because] they were built to ask for what they want, and they think in their heads, ‘This is what I deserve.’ I’ve seen how when you ask women for their rates, they will always ask for less than the man does. If you’re working on the brand side, do your due diligence and help a girl out. Tell her what she could be making.”

Pay transparency throughout the creator economy, whether you’re on the creative side or brand side, allows women to advocate for themselves so they can get the compensation and opportunities they deserve. This is how we create an industry that is equitable for everyone.

Advocacy and community leads to equity

While more conversations around the pay gap and pay transparency are bringing to light many of the challenges we face in the creator economy, we must advocate for ourselves and go after the things we want with confidence—or, as I like to call it, standing on business.

Brianne Fleming, Brand Marketer and Creator of the Making the Brand podcast, feels being direct and knowing what value you bring is the best approach for getting the opportunities you want.

“We don’t have to wait for someone to see us. We need to be more confident in asking for higher rates. That’s something that I have worked on when trying to negotiate—coming to the table, knowing what I offer, and knowing how to communicate it. I don’t use filler language or things that water it down for likability.”

As more women excel in the creator economy, there are a growing number of tools and communities available to help them build successful, sustainable businesses. When asked which creator or influencer platforms and tools they recommend for people who want resources on pay transparency, establishing rates, negotiation, marketing, and branding, the ladies mentioned the following brands:

• Your Soulcialmate
• Wethos
• Women In Influencer Marketing
• American Influencer Council
• Clara For Creators
• Hashtag Pay Me
• F*** You Pay Me
• #CreatorTeaTalk

Okay, okay. I put the last one there myself, but this article is about taking control of your narrative. The reality is that the creator economy is ripe with opportunities for women who want to be the entrepreneurs they want to be and build the brands they want to develop.

As someone who has done it herself, I have found that leveraging my community, advocating for change in the industry, and championing other women is part of a more significant social justice movement. One that fosters equality and fairness for all individuals, regardless of gender.

As Beyoncé’s husband once said, “Nobody wins when the family feuds.” For all of us to win, we need women to win.

Want to dig deeper? Read more about why diversity in marketing and social media is non-negotiable.

The post How women are building a more inclusive creator economy appeared first on Sprout Social.

AI can transform how your team operates for the better, but only through the thoughtful implementation of tools and resources. This workbook is designed to help you map out an AI social media strategy that makes the most of this emerging opportunity. It will help you:

• Recognize the pain points in your current processes and transform them into strategic goals for your AI social marketing strategy.
• Chart the opportunities and gaps in your existing tech stack.
• Identify the unique ethical considerations that must be addressed to promote the responsible use of AI.
• Prepare for AI vendor discovery and evaluation

Download the workbook and start saving your team valuable time today. 

The post [Workbook] How to design your AI social media marketing strategy appeared first on Sprout Social.

Fortunately, there are tons of free and inexpensive marketing resources available online to help you stay ahead. Whether you’re looking to advance your skills for a particular project or simply for professional development, the information you need is right at your fingertips. You just need to know where to look.

To help start your search, we rounded up some of the best marketing resources that have helped us make an impact. Share them with your team to help them elevate their skills, hone their expertise and set them up for career growth.

Note: The majority of these are free online marketing resources but some paid options did make the cut. To help you quickly differentiate between the two, we’ve marked all paid resources with an asterisk (*).

What are marketing resources?

Marketing resources are no longer limited to industry conferences, books or certification programs.

Today, some of the best news and practical marketing advice comes from a variety of sources like creator-driven newsletters, private communities and YouTube channels.

And as the world of marketing fragments into dozens of sub-disciplines, the breadth of available resources is equally vast. From social media marketing to creative strategy, digital marketing to analytics and AI, there are resources to help teams sharpen a range of marketing skills. Let’s get into some of our favorites:

• Social media marketing resources
• Digital marketing resources
• Copywriting resources
• Search engine optimization (SEO) resources
• Design and creative resources
• Email marketing resources
• Reporting and analytics resources
• Market research tools
• AI and marketing automation resources
• Marketing leadership development resources

Social media marketing resources

Social media marketing is an enormous and ever-changing field. Platforms are constantly making updates, meaning best practices can shift overnight. Luckily, there are tons of free tools available so you can make the most of these changes as they happen. Use this collection of blogs, newsletters and podcasts to keep up with the industry while keeping your sanity.

1. Social Media Today

Social Media Today is an Industry Dive publication providing original analysis on what’s happening in the social media world. They offer content in a variety of formats, including articles, webinars and full-on marketing playbooks. Plus, they have a daily email newsletter that delivers the day’s top stories straight to your inbox.

2. Rachel Karten’s Link in Bio Newsletter

Rachel Karten’s Link in Bio is a must-follow for anyone looking for on-the-ground dispatches on what’s working in social media marketing today.

Karten has more than eight years of experience in social with brands like Bon Appetit and Plated, providing her with a critical point of view on network trends and updates. On top of that, she also publishes feature interviews with social media managers finding unpaved paths to success. You’ll love seeing this in your inbox each week.

What to read first: Have you considered rizzing them up with a newsletter?

3. Sprout Social’s Insights Blog

You didn’t think we’d leave ourselves out, did you? Sprout’s Insights blog is home to tactical how-to articles, interviews with fellow social media marketers, original research and more.

What to read first: 11 social media trends you need to know in 2024

4. ICYMI by Lia Haberman

Lia Haberman is a marketing executive, consultant and lecturer for UCLA Extension where she focuses on social media and influencer marketing. Her weekly newsletter, In Case You Missed It, rounds up the latest social media platform updates, brand campaigns and creator news that marketers of all levels need to know.

If just the thought of trying to keep up with every network’s algorithm changes makes your head spin, ICYMI is the antidote you need.

5. The Arboretum

Over the last couple years, The Arboretum (Arb), a virtual community powered by Sprout, has become a thriving hub for social and marketing professionals—from practitioners to C-suite executives. Having hosted over 30 exclusive events, featuring keynote speakers from leading brands and numerous peer discussions, the community provides tangible value to members across 69 countries. More than 10,000 members turn to The Arb to troubleshoot on-the-job challenges, build their personal brands and learn from other experts in the field.

Digital marketing resources

Digital marketing is an umbrella category for all of the various promotional efforts that take place on the internet or through other digital means. While that’s definitely a wide net, there are tons of publications that can help you stay up to date on trending news and advice. Here are some of our favorites.

6. HubSpot Academy’s Digital Marketing Course

No marketing resource round-up would be complete without a nod to HubSpot Academy. Their course on digital marketing gives a great primer on content creation, social, paid search and more. Plus, if you pass their certification exam, you’ll also receive a certification badge you can add to your LinkedIn profile.

7. Today in Digital Marketing Podcast

Today in Digital Marketing is a daily eight-minute breakdown of what’s happening in the world of social, search and beyond. Fans of audio content will love host Tod Maffin’s quick and simple approach to news delivery.

8. The Contentfolks Newsletter

Contentfolks is a bi-weekly Substack newsletter that uses sticky notes and IRL examples to share a wide-range of content marketing advice. Subscribing is an easy way to commit to improving your marketing skills over time.

What to read first: How to interview your customers

Copywriting resources

Strong, concise writing is a foundational skill for marketers of all stripes, especially social media marketers. These copywriting and content marketing resources will strengthen your editorial skills so you can create punchier content in 2024.

9. Grammarly

Grammarly goes way beyond your standard spell check. Their digital writing assistant will evaluate your writing on correctness, clarity, engagement and delivery so your message always comes across crystal clear.

10. VeryGoodCopy

Eddie Shleyner’s micro-articles, courses and interviews can punch up your writing in less than five minutes each. VeryGoodCopy teaches a single persuasion principle or technique at a time, so you can start your day with a fun and informative copywriting exercise that can be completed in the time it takes to finish a cup of coffee.

What to read first: The lazy writer’s way to success

11. Everybody Writes by Ann Handley*

Everybody Writes is the go-to handbook for developing your copywriting skills. Packed with insightful lessons on grammar, storytelling and crafting compelling copy, this book is an essential addition to any marketer’s bookshelf.

Bonus resource: If you want to read some of Ann’s expertise for free, we’re big fans of her newsletter, too.

Search engine optimization (SEO) resources

Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential to any digital marketing strategy. With the right tools and resources in place, it can be a cost-effective way to reach potential customers at critical moments in their journey. These online marketing resources will help you brush up on SEO staples, from on-page optimizations to more technical and advanced tactics.

12. Google’s SEO Starter Guide

It’s only natural that Google, the world’s largest search engine, would have a comprehensive, easy-to-read guide to SEO. This resource is broken up into several chapters to help you level up your understanding of search, whether you’re new to the topic or a seasoned pro. It’s a must-read for anyone looking to drive more traffic to their site.

13. Backlinko’s SEO Marketing Hub

Backlinko’s exhaustive collection of SEO marketing resources will elevate your search engine optimization knowledge no matter your current skill level. Read through the hub in full or skip around to find out what you need to know. Either way, you’re guaranteed to find what you’re looking for.

What to read first: What is SEO? Search engine optimization in plain english

14. AhrefsTV

Ahrefs excels at breaking down complex SEO topics into simple, easy reads. Their YouTube channel, AhrefsTV, takes this skill and translates it into video. Ahrefs TV is home to both 101-level fundamentals and more advanced content. It’s perfect for anyone looking to brush up on their SEO skills over time.

15. Google Search Console Training

Google Search Console helps users improve their site performance on Google search through a collection of tools and reports that measure site traffic and any issues that may be deterring it. If you haven’t used it before, Google offers a video training course that explains how to use the platform.

The full library contains twenty videos, some of which cater to specific industries and professions—a must-watch for anyone looking to improve their familiarity with Search Console.

Design and creative resources

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again: “social media manager” and “designer” are two separate roles. Still, if you’re in a pinch and find yourself needing to make your own creative, these tools can help you create something polished and Like-worthy.

16. Sprout’s Social Media Image Size Guide

Visual content is integral to your social media marketing strategy. Keep our always-up-to-date social media image size guide handy as a reference when optimizing content by platform.

17. Landscape by Sprout Social

Once you figure out what image sizes you need, use Landscape to create the picture-perfect crop.

With Landscape, you can upload any image you’d like to post on social media and have it resized to work for all your priority social media networks. This image resizer is a simple but powerful tool designed to help marketers, content creators and business owners stand out in an increasingly visual world.

18. Canva Design School

Anyone can make beautiful visual designs using Canva, the online graphic design platform. Their educational hub, Canva Design School, is home to a series of recorded and live workshops that can help you bring your creative vision to life.

 19. Unsplash

Unsplash hosts over two million free-to-use high-resolution images. Their collection is sorted by a number of categories, including current events, nature, people and more, so you can find the perfect photo faster.

20. Free Social Media Templates Gallery

Sprout’s free template gallery is home to striking social media templates designed specifically for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. Customize them with your images and text, and you’ll get a unique graphic that makes your account pop.

21. Loom*

Is your download folder filled to the brim with time-stamped screenshots? With Loom, you can take, label and share screenshots. The platform—which offers free and paid plans—is known for its screen recording capabilities, helping you add more context when sharing feedback and delivering creative briefs.

Video editing resources

More than half (65%) of consumers agree that short-form video is the most engaging type of in-feed social content. If you’re looking to build out your video editing toolkit in 2023, here are our top picks.

22. CapCut

You can create some pretty impressive video content using network tools, but if you want a better user experience and advanced features, turn to CapCut. It’s available as both a mobile and desktop app so you can create a stand-out social media video without all the squinting.

23. Adobe Premiere Pro*

Adobe Premiere Pro is a subscription-based video editing application used by brands and creators alike. Use it to create stunning videos that look custom-made for every social channel—including YouTube.

24. Teleprompter App

The Teleprompter app is the perfect tool to have in your back pocket for when your teammates are feeling a bit camera shy. Even the presence of a teleprompter is enough to make people feel more comfortable in front of a camera.. Just remind them not to use it to read their script word-for-word. It’s meant to be a helping hand, not a read-along.

25. Frame.io*

If you’ve ever sent a list of time-stamped video edits to your creative team, consider Frame.io. This tool provides a central hub that supports collaboration across the video editing process through comments and tracked changes. You can also tag specific team members in requests so everyone stays aligned on action items.

Email marketing resources

Email marketing has been around for decades, yet brands are still pushing the standards of what the channel can do. Whether through stunning interactive design or creative campaign strategy, there’s always something to learn from the ol’ inbox.

26. Really Good Emails

Really Good Emails is just that—an ever-growing curated collection of really good emails. This constant stream of marketing design and copy examples is the perfect tool for building your inspiration swipe file.

27. Litmus Blog

The Litmus blog is an indispensable resource for keeping up with best practices in email marketing. Whether you’re concerned with content, deliverability or even changing privacy laws, you’ll find a must-read article as soon as you hit their resources page.

What to read first: The State of Email Trends Report – 2024 Edition

28. Omnisend’s Email Subject Line Tester

This tool from Omnisend gives marketers a chance to analyze and improve subject lines before they press send. Find optimized recommendations based on several factors including length, word count and scannability.

Reporting and analytics resources

Reporting skills are essential to proving the value of your marketing and social strategy. Show your leadership team how your work fuels your marketing goals using these resources.

29. Skillshop

Skillshop is the destination for brushing up on all things Google, from how to manage Google Ads to understanding the ins and outs of YouTube copyright. But almost all marketers can get value from the lineup of GA4 courses. These lessons are a great way to get hands-on experience on the platform, especially since Universal Analytics was discontinued.

30. Orbit Media Studios YouTube Channel

The Orbit Media Studios YouTube channel is a great video complement to their famous blog. Their succinct videos answer a range of analytics questions for people of all experience levels.

What to watch first: Site Search Tracking in GA4: Setup, Analysis & Insights

31. Sprout’s Paid and Organic Reporting Template

Winning social strategies rely on a solid mix of paid and organic efforts. This reporting template will help you track the performance of a two-fold strategy. It’s an essential tool for tying social performance back to top-line business goals.

Market research tools

How do you pressure-test ideas on a budget? Market research, of course. In the past, market research has seemed too expensive or involved for anyone working outside of enterprise businesses. However, thanks to the wealth of social data that exists at your fingertips, you can now quickly and accurately identify actionable insights on what matters to your audience.

32. ThinkWithGoogle

Here’s a two for one. ThinkWithGoogle gathers fresh perspectives on industry trends and consumer behavior sourced from the Google marketing team as well as other leading marketers across the globe. Their research is informed by search trends and expanded upon to include actionable insights so you can apply the data in a way that makes sense for your brand.

33. Exploding Topics

If you want to find out about the next big thing before it’s a trending topic, you need to subscribe to the Exploding Topics newsletter. Every Tuesday, their team shares expert analysis on search topics that are about to take off. Plus, they also include valuable context on why a trend may be gaining popularity and what marketers can expect from it next.

34. Pinterest Trends

Pinterest Trends forecasts what’s next in fashion, food, beauty and more using data from Pinterest users across the US, UK and Canada. If you have a hunch on what’s making waves in your industry, you can also use the Trends tool to check its search volume, related trends and top Pins.

35. Answer The Public

Answer the Public’s website claims it’s a “goldmine of consumer insight” and we will gladly second that assessment. The tool gathers autocomplete data from search engines so you can find all the questions and terms people are searching around your product, brand or even a general topic.

36. Sprout Social’s Listening Tool

Social data can answer a brand’s most important questions about how to manage, expand and grow its business. Sprout’s Social Listening tool is a premium add-on that helps brands distill global social conversations into actionable insights on brand health, content opportunities, product decisions and more.

Start a Free Trial Today

AI and marketing automation resources

This year’s hot topic comes with a learning curve. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are revolutionizing how people are thinking about marketing as we speak, so the time to get up to speed on the topic is now. Here are some of our favorite recommendations.

37. MIT Sloan’s Machine Learning Explained

Shout out to the folks at MIT Sloan School of Management for gifting us all with this free, in-depth primer on machine learning. This article is a long read but it’s more than worth it. Read it for insights from MIT professors who have been working in the AI/ML field for years and for a vocab lesson on some key terms you’ll be hearing throughout 2023 and beyond.

38. ChatGPT

It’s been hard to exist anywhere online lately without hearing about ChatGPT.

Use case examples are constantly discussed on social, in the news and at events, with pros from nearly every industry discovering ways the tool could streamline their day-to-day work. If you haven’t tested out ChatGPT yet, try it today. Here’s a helpful Twitter thread on how to create a workable prompt. Once you get acquainted with the tool’s limitations, your only limit is your imagination.

Even better, test it out in Sprout. Sprout’s AI Assist suite of features integrates with OpenAI’s GPT functiality to help you write captions, respond to customers and craft sophisticated listening queries.

39. Jeff MacDonald’s AI guides

Finding the right opportunities to embed AI in your day-to-day marketing work can feel overwhelming. Jeff MacDonald, Social Strategy Director at Mekanism, is an AI enthusiast who’s here to help. He has built out a variety of how-to guides for marketers on topics including AI prompt writing, image generation and ChatGPT use cases.

Marketing leadership development resources

Remote and hybrid work has turned office communication standards on their head. Whether you currently lead a team or you simply like to be seen as a leader, these resources can help you step up in a changing work environment.

40. Fast Company*

If you want to stay up-to-date on what the future of business has in store, you need to subscribe to Fast Company. Launched by two former Harvard Business Review editors in 1995, Fast Company chronicles how our changing world impacts business and vice versa. It’s a must-read for those looking to zoom out so they can understand their brand’s place in the bigger picture.

41. Harvard Business Review*

Harvard Business Review is on a mission to improve the practice of management in a changing world. Their content ranges from perspectives on current events to general best practice advice on leadership, organizational culture and more. If you’re new to corporate life or if you’re coaching others who are, check out Ascend, HBR’s learning companion for graduating students and Millennials in the workplace.

What to read first: Want to Be a Better Leader? Stop Thinking About Work After Hours

42. CMO Today Newsletter

If your New Year’s resolution is to start thinking more strategically, this is the newsletter subscription for you. The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today looks at the day’s top news through a marketing lens so you can learn from how other leaders approach today’s ever-changing marketing landscape.

43. Marketing Week

Marketing Week is home to both practical advice and feature stories on game-changing strategies and leaders. It’s a go-to resource for those seeking inspiration from brands piloting new channels and working on the cutting edge of what’s possible with martech.

Elevate your marketing skills in 2024

Think of these resources as your textbooks to help you navigate what is bound to be another great year for you and your team. You probably won’t be able to read them all in one sitting, so be sure to bookmark this page for later. That way you can refer to the list as you work through crushing your 2024 goals.

Remember to share this with your team, as well. Pair it with the social media career growth planning template to get them thinking about what’s next in their marketing journey. Happy learning!

The post The 43 best marketing resources we recommend in 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

Once it locks into place, you’re left with a more complete picture of consumer needs.

When searching for your company’s missing piece, an informed decision is the best decision. Kicking off your selection process with a dedicated research phase can pave the way for better process and performance outcomes.

The tool that takes your team’s efforts to the next level is out there. Keep reading to find out what you need to know when choosing an enterprise social media management software.

• Social media for enterprise: Why it’s taking center stage
• How to choose the right enterprise social media management software
• The enterprise social media management tools your business needs

Social media for enterprise: Why it’s taking center stage

Social media has fundamentally altered the brand-consumer relationship. Industry trailblazers—who have championed a new era of brand relevance—have made consumers more receptive than ever to seeing businesses in their feed. Audiences aren’t just passively consuming branded content, they’re looking for it.

According to The 2023 Sprout Social Index™ Report, 68% of consumers follow brands on social media to stay informed about new products or services. Nearly half (48%) follow for access to exclusive deals or promotions. Social has taken the mall experience online, where brands of all sizes go head-to-head for market share.

On social, the best strategy wins. The brands that maximize their use of social data to engage audiences are positioned to foster life-long fans—and generate meaningful revenue.

In a way, this gives smaller businesses a slight advantage, as smaller teams often have more streamlined approval workflows and less internal bureaucracy. If enterprise brands want to capitalize on the full impact of social media, they need to strive for maximum operational efficiency.

Succeeding in the most dynamic channel in marketing calls for more than just creative thinking and a strategic mindset. You need a tech stack designed to dramatically reduce time-to-insights, so you can focus on interpreting trends, developing predictions and making more informed, data-driven decisions.

How to choose the right enterprise social media management software

Enterprise software purchases are a team sport. Throughout the buying process, you’ll likely have to work with several stakeholders across your business, from IT to legal and beyond.

You can ensure that all stakeholder concerns are addressed during the vendor selection process with just a few hours of prep work. Here’s what you need to know to set your company up for social success: 

1. Know your goals

Why does your business need a new enterprise social media management software?

This may sound like an easy question, but asking it is a major step toward ensuring everyone is on the same page. For example, your social team may have different marketing priorities than those operating on the customer service side. Defining your goals creates clarity, which leads to more informed decisions.

Schedule a kickoff meeting with all your stakeholders to decide on top priorities. Remember to keep longevity in mind so you won’t have to repeat this process at the end of your contract terms.

2. Know your governance and compliance policies

When you think of all the bells and whistles you want out of your next social media management solution, governance features probably aren’t at the top of your list. While they may not be particularly flashy, enterprise social media security tools are incredibly important when it comes to eliminating risk.

Work with your IT team to outline the social media governance concerns and requirements you’ll need to discuss with potential vendors. Preparing and sharing a compliance-focused scoresheet before signing up for demos can save both parties time and effort.

Pro tip: Outlining these concerns in a social media RFP helps vendors remove themselves from your process if they can’t meet your security needs.

3. Know your priority integrations

Social data can revolutionize how your business seeks and acts on consumer insights. But if it lives on software that’s isolated from your tech stack, you won’t be getting the full picture.

Identify which social media management integrations matter most when creating wow-worthy customer experiences online. Rank them by importance and mark which are non-negotiable. As you move through vendor evaluations, this will help you identify which software will be most able to meet your needs.

The enterprise social media management tools your business needs

By now, you should have all the information you need to choose a tool that complements both your existing processes and tech stack. It’s finally time to create your vendor shortlist.

• Enterprise social media management
• Enterprise social network
• Influencer marketing
• Customer experience
• Lead generation
• CRM
• Business intelligence
• Workflow and digital asset management
• Reputation management
• Social commerce

Enterprise social media management: Sprout Social

Sprout Social offers a full suite of enterprise-grade tools that unlock significant business impact through social. We work with a roster of partners to ensure your social media processes are integrated into everything from internal communications to customer retention and enterprise reporting. With Sprout, you can mitigate risk, capitalize on opportunities and amplify your brand in a fan-favorite platform.

Our G2 rankings speak for themselves. In 2024, Sprout was named #1 Best Software Product by G2’s Best Software Awards—a recognition informed by authentic reviews by real users. On top of that, Sprout has maintained its status as a G2 Enterprise leader every quarter since 2018.

We could provide you with a whole laundry list of reasons to consider Sprout when selecting a new enterprise social media management tool. In the interest of time, we’ll stick to the top three reasons enterprise organizations choose Sprout for org-wide strategic alignment:

• We invest in research and development: Through strategic acquisitions and investments in cutting-edge AI analytics, we’re enhancing our customers’ ability to drive deeper insights from social media and expand their brand presence. Our AI Assist features are designed through proprietary machine learning and deep automation capabilities with OpenAI’s GPT model, empowering teams to work smarter and achieve greater impact.
• We bring alignment to marketing and customer service teams: Social Customer Care by Sprout Social and Sprout’s partnership with Salesforce Service Cloud set teams up to provide faster, more efficient support. We streamline the handling of incoming messages across networks, integrations, geographies and languages so your service agents can provide better service in less time.
• We speed up time-to-insights: Sprout’s analytics tools provide users with an extensive analysis of their brand’s social media presence in seconds. Reports are easy to build and easy to understand, so teams can focus on using that social data and industry insights to design more effective campaigns.

Enterprise organizations can schedule a demo to discuss their needs and goals with a member of Team Sprout. From there, we’ll take you on a live product tour so you can learn more about how to get the most out of the platform.

Schedule a demo

Enterprise social network: Slack

What is it? Slack is a team collaboration tool that is basically the professional equivalent of AOL Instant Messenger. Companies use this enterprise social network to promote internal communication through direct messaging and group channels.

How does it work with Sprout Social? Sprout’s pre-built integration with Slack helps social teams keep up with approval processes and task flows in real time.

Once a Slack Workspace is connected to a Sprout instance, users can choose which Sprout notifications they’d like to receive via Slack. This is a game changer for time-sensitive engagement opportunities and lengthy approval workflows.

Influencer marketing: Tagger

What is it? Tagger by Sprout Social is the leading influencer marketing and social intelligence platform, revolutionizing how brands and agencies harness data and analytics to drive influencer marketing strategies.

How does it work with Sprout Social? Successful influencer marketing strategies can’t exist while siloed off from a greater social media marketing strategy. Sprout Social and Tagger connect the dots between your influencer and brand social strategies, maximizing workflow efficiency from onboarding to project assignment to execution.

Customer experience: Salesforce Service Cloud

What is Salesforce Service Cloud? Service Cloud is the world’s most popular and highly rated customer service software solution.

How does Salesforce Service Cloud work with Sprout Social? Sprout’s preferred partnership with Salesforce drives a true 360 degree understanding of your customers. The integration pulls together conversations across Sprout and Salesforce Service Cloud so agents have complete context to effectively add the right level of personalization to customer inquiries.

According to the 2023 Sprout Social Index™, 76% of consumers notice and appreciate when companies prioritize customer support. Connecting Sprout and Salesforce Service Cloud allows teams to respond to customers faster, with better solutions that meet their unique needs—a recipe for long-term loyalty and retention.

Lead generation: Adobe Marketo Engage

What is it? Adobe Marketo Engage is a lead management platform that helps marketers nurture prospects and target qualified lead-to-revenue opportunities.

How does it work with Sprout Social? Sprout’s integration with Marketo Engage helps social teams send warm leads over to sales quickly and with all the necessary context needed to get the conversation started on the right foot.

Users can create and edit leads within the Sprout platform, creating a richer lead profile that accounts for a prospect’s full experience with your brand.

CRM: Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365

What is it? Customer relationship management (CRM) tools are like digital rolodexes that house all of a business’ prospect, lead and customer data.

Sprout integrates with two enterprise CRM tools: Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

How does Salesforce work with Sprout Social? Sprout’s integration with Salesforce allows users to edit leads, cases and contacts through the Sprout platform. This easy-to-use, pre-built integration supports alignment between marketing, sales and support teams so everyone can take advantage of critical social insights.

How does Microsoft Dynamics 365 work with Sprout Social? Our enterprise social media management solution integrates with Dynamics 365 to assist with lead generation and support case management.

Business Intelligence: Tableau

What is it? Tableau is a visual analytics platform for creating actionable and easy-to-understand data visualizations. The platform processes data from integrated sources, delivering predictions and recommendations using Einstein AI.

How does Tableau work with Sprout Social? Sprout Social’s Tableau Business Intelligence (BI) Connector layers rich social data on insights across marketing channels, creating a truly omnichannel view of the customer experience.

This centralized source of audience insights empowers enterprise brands with the resources necessary to identify opportunities to meaningfully influence the customer journey.

Workflow and digital asset management: Dropbox, Feedly and Canva

What is it? Creating a single piece of content can require several video clips, graphics and reference materials. Workflow and digital asset management tools centralize these files in a single location for easy storage and sharing.

Sprout Social integrates with three workflow and digital asset management tools:

• Dropbox: a cloud-based file hosting service that helps teams share files and folders easily.
• Feedly: a news aggregator that allows users to organize and research stories by topic.
• Canva: an online graphic design tool that can be used to create social media graphics, videos and presentation decks.

How does Dropbox work with Sprout Social? Sprout’s integration with Dropbox streamlines content creation by allowing users to access Dropbox files from directly within the Compose tool.

How does Feedly work with Sprout Social? News aggregators can level up enterprise social media management by creating a direct stream of content inspiration in a centralized location.

Users who connect their Feedly account to Sprout Social can access their personal RSS feeds from the Feeds tab. This content can be used as third-party social shares or for extra doses of inspiration.

 How does Canva work with Sprout Social? If your team relies on Canva to punch up your visuals, Sprout’s Canva integration lets you import design files from your Canva folders for beautiful, on-brand social creative, every time.

Reputation management: Glassdoor, Tripadvisor, Yelp and Google My Business

What is it? Social proof is a psychological phenomenon in digital marketing that has both risks and rewards. While seeking feedback can open your company up to critique, positive feedback is too powerful to miss out on.

Enterprise businesses face a unique challenge when it comes to reputation management. The larger your company, the more customer touch points. More customer touch points leave more opportunities for feedback.

Using social media reputation management tools like Glassdoor, Tripadvisor, Yelp and Google My Business can help enterprise businesses be proactive with reviews, even at high volumes.

How does Sprout work with Glassdoor, Tripadvisor, Yelp and Google My Business? The Reviews tab in Sprout Social centralizes feedback from all four sites.

Enterprise businesses can create multiple filtered views to triage and respond to reviews across channels. You can also report on reviews by volume and star rating from the Reports tab.

Social commerce: Shopify and WooCommerce

What is it? Social commerce—the buying and selling of goods and services within a social media platform—is creating brand new revenue opportunities for enterprise organizations.

To sell directly on social media, marketers typically must link their ecommerce platform to their enterprise social media management tool. Sprout integrates with two ecommerce platforms: Shopify and WooCommerce.

How does Sprout work with Shopify and WooCommerce? Marketers can set up their social commerce shops by integrating their preferred ecommerce platform with Sprout Social.

Once the platforms are connected, you can curate your shop by selecting which listings you’d like to promote on social. Listings can also be promoted in scheduled content using custom product links, turning social into your new storefront.

Enterprise social media management is your tech stack’s missing piece

Social data can do more than just connect the dots between strategy and ROI. When it’s used in collaboration with other enterprise tools, it can provide the insights needed to drive proactive decisions.

To put it simply: When you invest in social data, you invest in future-proofing your business for the road ahead.

Use Sprout Social to create clear links between your social strategy and business impact. Learn more about our enterprise-level social media management software today.

The post Enterprise social media: The tools your organization should use in 2024 appeared first on Sprout Social.

If your product is a good fit to solve this problem, the battle is already halfway over. However, there are thousands of other products out there also trying to grab your audience’s attention and prove just the same.

A solid demand generation strategy helps your brand stand out from the crowd. This proactive marketing approach educates and engages your audience throughout their journey. It convinces them that your solution will solve their problems.

In this guide, we will show you how to create a demand generation strategy and example strategies that can help you engage the right people at the right time.

Table of contents:

• What is demand generation?
• What is a demand generation strategy?
• Elements of a successful demand generation strategy
• 3 demand generation strategy examples
• Demand generation vs. lead generation vs. inbound marketing
• Demand generation and data

What is demand generation?

Demand generation is a marketing strategy that uses education, content and brand storytelling to attract customers. It talks about a problem your target audience faces in their work or life and positions your product as the answer.

While demand generation is all about building engagement and trust, it’s not just an early-funnel marketing strategy. Demand generation can apply to touchpoints throughout the entire sales and conversion cycle. The goal is to build and nurture crucial customer relationships over the long term.

The bottom line is demand generation differs from other types of marketing because it is proactive. It shows potential customers that you understand their challenges—and you have a product to fix them.

What is demand generation strategy?

A demand generation strategy builds awareness or need for a product through customer education. It uses tactics like social media marketing to target an audience throughout their customer journey.

A successful demand generation strategy aims to identify and attract qualified leads (a.k.a. the people who are interested/need your product) into your marketing funnel. From there, you can build trust and ultimately—turn them into paying customers.

Elements of a successful demand generation strategy

A successful demand generation strategy has several moving parts, which vary depending on what content resonates with your target audience and the specific platforms they use.

Here are five elements your demand generation strategy should include.

1. Buyer persona development

If you try to sell to everyone—you end up selling to no one.

A core part of a demand generation strategy is to develop buyer personas, or ideal customer profiles (ICPs), to help target the right people. ICPs are fictitious personas, but they build a description of a person who needs your product based on age, job, industry and budget.

These personas paint a clear picture of:

• What problems/pain points your audience wants to solve
• Any solutions they are already weighing up (i.e. your competitors)
• What motivates this particular persona to buy a product
• What stage of the buying journey they are at

Check out this B2B buyer persona from Semrush.

It covers a (fictitious) customer’s pain points, buying influences and industry knowledge. It also shows the potential value they will get from the product. This can guide what to target in your next marketing campaign to help connect with potential customers who fit this buyer persona.

This strategy is easier with the right tools. Sprout’s Social Listening solutions add more context to your market research. For example, use the demographics report to track your target audience‘s age, gender and even what tech they are using to search for products.

This information enables you to craft more detailed content to match their persona.

2. Multi-channel approach

Multi-channel marketing is a must-have addition to your demand generation strategy. This strategy covers marketing channels like email, social media platforms and content distribution. It also works best when you show up in the places where your audience (actually) hangs out, and data can point you in the right direction.

Say you want to generate demand through your brand’s social media channels. With Sprout, run a Profile Performance Report to uncover what channels currently get the most traction and engagement.

Also get insight into your most engaged followers such as age, interests, professional title or industry. This will make it easier to create content that connects with their specific pain points.

3. Content quality and relevance

The secret sauce to generate demand is to focus on what your audience really needs help with. Talking in your audience’s language and addressing their pain points is more impactful than a strategy that targets generic needs.

Where you create and distribute content also matters. In 2023, 60% of B2B content marketers surveyed said social media was the most effective channel for driving revenue. At Sprout, we use a multi-channel social media approach to generate demand and brand awareness:

• Sprout’s YouTube channel has a library full of videos relevant to our target audience. Viewers can educate themselves about social media marketing by learning new tactics. They can also view annual predictions and learn new marketing hacks. Thanks to these tips, our audience starts to view Sprout as a trusted industry expert.
• We regularly post content to TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. Our presence on these platforms is crucial for brand awareness and telling our story to our core audience.
• We also created the Social Creatures podcast to amplify the stories of our favorite social media accounts. Each episode digs into the success of leading social media marketers and uncovers the tactics they use to grow their accounts.

This targeted content taps into our audience’s problems to generate demand. It’s this connection that helps us build trust.

4. Lead scoring and qualification

Every lead that drops into your marketing funnel is different. Using a lead scoring strategy narrows down which ones are most likely to become paying customers.

Maximizing your resources at this early stage means your team can spend more time nurturing high-quality leads and reducing dead ends.

So, how do you build a foolproof lead scoring strategy?

Start by digging into your attribution data. Figure out which marketing efforts lead to conversions throughout your funnel.

Then, ask your sales and marketing teams to decide what a “good” quality lead looks like in terms of buying signals. Use their suggestions to create a lead scoring model. Weigh actions, like registering for a webinar, against real conversions in your marketing and sales funnels.

Here’s an example.

When a lead reaches a certain score, it signals to your marketing or sales team that it’s worth pursuing.

5. Data-driven decision making

Data-driven marketing helps tailor your demand generation strategy to fit your target audience. For example, a marketing team running a new social media campaign can dig into the performance data throughout the campaign to see what’s working best.

By analyzing this data, the marketing team can make timely optimizations and improve outcomes. This is also a smart way to increase return on ad spend (ROAS) instead of waiting to study it postmortem.

Sprout Social enables you to track engagement, sentiment and impressions to show you what resonates with your audience. It also weighs each demand generation campaign against your competitors. This helps you see what content your target audience is engaging with to help you stay competitive and make better decisions.

3 demand generation strategy examples

Demand generation is cemented in building trust with a target audience. It aims to educate prospects and promote your product as the best way to address a need. This proactive marketing approach is what makes demand generation so impactful.

Here are three strategies to use for demand generation:

1. Account-based marketing (ABM)

ABM is a demand generation strategy used to build relationships with high-value prospects. An ABM Leadership Alliance survey covering over 300 B2B marketers showed 93% used an ABM strategy to bring customers into their funnel.

For ABM to be effective, look at your data and build out a list of potential target accounts. If their attributes match one of your existing buyer personas—add them to your target list.

This is how DocuSign used an ABM-focused campaign to target 450 enterprise prospects. It targeted six internal buyer personas using unique advertisements and landing pages to speak specifically to that audience.

The strategy was effective because:

• Each ad contained personalized messages for target accounts based on their stage in their buying process.
• DocuSign knew every ICP had different problems to solve. It created personalized content, case studies and testimonials to tap into their pain points.

DocuSign then used personalized ads to drive each key account to a customized landing page.

Just three months after launching the campaign, DocuSign improved engagement by 59%. Page views also increased by 300%, and 18% of the target account list had at least one secured opportunity.

2. Target each stage of your content funnel differently

The best way to demonstrate the value of a solution is through content. Eighty-one percent of buyers surveyed in Demand Gen Report’s latest B2B Buyer Survey said content had a significant impact on their buying decisions.

For content to influence a potential customer, it must meet them where they are at in their buying journey. Let’s break down what a typical journey looks like:

• Top of Funnel (TOFU): This is the awareness stage of the funnel. A potential customer is learning about what your brand does and broadly what problems your product solves.
• Middle of Funnel (MOFU): This is the consideration stage. The potential customer knows what their problem is, and they are looking for a product to solve it. They’re aware of your product, but you need to earn their trust first.
• Bottom of Funnel (BOFU): This is the decision stage. It’s your chance to win the potential customer over and convince them your product will be a good fit.

At each stage, the content a potential customer consumes must reflect where they are in the funnel and their awareness of you.

Let’s walk through a (very simple) example of how you can do this.

Imagine a potential customer who is just starting to research your marketing tools. They probably don’t want to read about why your brand is the best platform on the market. But, a guide on a topic like “how to use automation tools” can teach them how a product like yours can improve their marketing efforts.

Now, let’s look at how this works in more detail.

A TOFU piece of content in the marketing funnel will target general marketing topics to educate our audience. For example, we have detailed guides on how to build a social media marketing strategy or improve social media engagement. We wrote these posts to help our target audience become better social media marketers—nothing more.

Once they know who you are, they move to the middle of the marketing funnel. At this point, you may use more product-oriented guides to convince them that your marketing tool is a good investment. Then, if they make it further down the funnel, BOFU content is used. This content is for potential customers who know they need a solution but are weighing up their options.

At this stage, you’re looking to convince them to engage with you, or raise their hand to learn more about what you specifically offer.

Building out a successful content machine takes a lot of work. But, your strategy will get a lot more traction if each content piece targets your audience with what they need, where they need it and when.

3. Use social media for your B2B demand generation strategy

Our 2023 State of Social Media report found seven in 10 leaders agree that social media is underutilized within their organization. Ninety-seven percent of business leaders we talked to believe the use of social data to understand market trends will increase in the coming years.

Like the other strategies on our list, each social media platform requires a different approach. LinkedIn is the perfect place to write longer thought-leadership content. On the other hand, X (formerly known as Twitter) is great for engaging with other business influencers and customers.

One thing is for sure—B2B buyers don’t just hang out on LinkedIn. According to The Sprout Social Index, 68% of customers follow a brand on social to stay informed about new products or services. While 51% of consumers also said responding is the most memorable action a brand takes on social media.

Even brands built on the backs of traditional channels like SEO know the power social media can bring to demand generation.

Ahrefs Chief Marketing Officer, Tim Soulo, uses his social channels to chat with thousands of fellow marketers. He starts LinkedIn conversations around trends like AI to keep followers engaged.

This thought leadership approach to social media shows the power of the platforms to increase brand awareness. It’s also a great reminder that platforms like LinkedIn can build an incredible amount of trust with your target audience.

Demand generation vs. lead generation vs. inbound marketing

Demand generation differs from lead generation in a few ways. Lead generation applies when your audience is actively seeking out different services or products to address a need. The main goal of a lead generation campaign therefore is to obtain a prospect’s information so you can nurture the relationship through the marketing funnel, ultimately selling them your product or service. This differs from demand generation, as its main goal is to increase brand awareness.

Inbound marketing is when your audience seeks out information for a problem that they are trying to solve and organically comes across your brand as a potential solution. If you are regularly creating content, then your lead generation most likely comes through this source. Inbound marketing is less disruptive than outbound strategies, and therefore often results in higher-quality prospects.

Inbound marketing and lead generation complement each other. When you create content that aims to solve a common problem, your brand attracts inbound leads. This is because your audience is already aware of the problem and is actively seeking out solutions. In contrast, demand generation is about you trying to reach audiences that don’t yet know your product or service has benefits to offer them.

Demand generation and data

Demand generation relies on your ability to understand consumer needs. And data is a vital tool for figuring that out. For example, use data to measure if your marketing content and efforts resonate with your audience, or understand how to best reach your audience. Continuous testing, analysis and data collection are crucial for your demand generation efforts to succeed.

There are several key parts of demand generation can you can track.

Metrics throughout the funnel

• Marketing qualified leads (MQLs): This metric represents someone who has taken a step like filling in a contact form or signing up for a free trial. These actions signal people are interested in your product. It’s important to track MQLs so you know what stage of the marketing funnel visitors are turning into potential customers.
• Attribution: This tracks which touchpoints a visitor has hit to become a customer. It will track their engagement with your website or other channels, what pages they visit or if they fill out a form. Attribution tracks how someone turns from a visitor into a paying customer.
• Engagement: Track what level of engagement each post is getting on your social channels. Engagement metrics like shares, comments, likes and impressions show what content resonates best with your target audience.

Account-based marketing metrics

• Total addressable market (TAM): This calculates the total revenue opportunity available for a product or service within your market.
• Conversions: This metric tracks how many accounts your ABM strategy successfully converted. Take the number of accounts your team was targeting and divide it by those who turned into paying customers.

Predictive data

• Customer lifetime value (CLV): A prediction based on historical data of the total amount a customer will likely spend during their relationship with your brand. A high CLV is a good indication the customer has a solid product-market fit and loyalty to your brand.
• Churn probability: This metric calculates the probability that a customer/user will stop using your product or service. Predicting churn probability can fuel a proactive approach and give your brand a chance to re-engage customers before they leave.

Using the right tool can give you an accurate picture of your demand generation strategy’s performance in real-time. Tools like Sprout Social gather customer insights to determine what they think about you and your competitors, their interests and pain points, what kind of content they appreciate most, which social channels you should connect with them on and more.

Use demand generation to turn strangers into customers

A demand generation strategy hinges on understanding your audience, their problems and how your solution can help. While it begins at your customer’s first touchpoint, social media now plays a huge part in any demand generation strategy. If marketers can engage their target audience on social and build trust early, more leads will flow into their marketing funnel.

Keep the strategy simple: show up on your customer’s preferred social channels, target your audience with engaging content and most importantly—pitch your product as a problem solver.

For a more in-depth look at how to set up a social media funnel that complements your demand generation strategy, check out our post on building a successful social media marketing funnel.

The post Executing a successful demand generation strategy [with examples] appeared first on Sprout Social.

However, beyond research, there’s the crucial task of distilling those insights into actionable strategies that’ll give your business an advantage. This is where competitive analysis reports become critical, providing you a roadmap for translating raw data into strategic direction.

In this guide, we’ll explore how competitive analysis reports benefit your business, how you can build effective reports, the areas to focus on and competitive reporting tools.

What is a competitive analysis report?

A competitive analysis report is a strategic document that examines the position and performance of your competitors in your business. The report synthesizes your competitive intelligence research data and provides conclusions for better decision-making. It helps you understand the competitive landscape, identify areas for innovation or improvement and formulate strategies to outperform competitors.

A competitive analysis report typically contains information on marketing tactics, target audience demographics, product comparison and industry trends.

Benefits of a competitive analysis report

A competitive analysis report serves as a tool for competitor benchmarking. You can use it as a standard for realistic goal setting, accessing your business performance and measuring growth.

Let’s dive into some more key benefits.

Know where your business stands in the market

A good competitive analysis provides a realistic understanding of your business’ position in the market. Rather than make assumptions, use your report to make data-driven calculations of how your business compares in terms of market share, customers, messaging and differentiation.

For example, if you’re selling video editing software, you might use a competitive analysis report to learn how easy or difficult it is for novices to use your tool compared to your competitors’ tools. With this insight, you can define your unique selling proposition, understand customer preferences, identify gaps and decide on a positioning strategy that aligns your business goals with customer needs.

Understand your strengths and weaknesses vs. your competitors

Digging into competitor data doesn’t just uncover their strengths and weaknesses, it also exposes yours. Done properly, competitive reporting removes bias and shows you raw data on the areas where your business excels and lags.

A competitive analysis report also sheds light on the mistakes, failures and successes of your business rivals. So, you can build on those successes, avoid making the same mistakes and better position your business for growth.

Identify untapped opportunities and threats

A comprehensive competitive report uncovers growth opportunities such as underserved markets, emerging customer segments and areas where your competitors are underperforming. It also highlights potential threats like new market entrants or changes in customer behaviors. With this knowledge, you can create strategies to bridge those gaps.

Enhance marketing effectiveness

Reporting on your competitors’ marketing strategies is an opportunity to review and refine your own. For example, if you notice gaps in your competitor’s offering, messaging or positioning, you can devise strategies to differentiate yourself by marketing and selling your unique value more effectively.

Inform stronger business decisions

The insights in a competitive analysis report can inform stronger business decisions across departments such as product, marketing, procurement and others. By anchoring your strategies on data-driven insights, you can better defend your market and meet customer needs.

How to create a competitive analysis report

A competitor analysis report should your teams a clear picture of what the business is up against and the necessary strategies to get ahead.

Follow these steps to create an effective competitive analysis report:

Have a clear objective for your report

Since competitive analysis serves every aspect of your business, it can quickly become overwhelming. Outline it at the beginning of your document to clarify your goals and objectives. This will keep you and your report from getting lost in the vast amount of data you’ll uncover.

Do you want to investigate every aspect of your competitors and create an all-encompassing report? Or are you interested in specific areas like their sales and marketing strategies? Your objective will guide your research and direct the format for the report.

Identify your main competitors

Once you’re clear on the “why”, outline the competitors you must outperform to gain the upper hand in the market.

You can identify these competitors by speaking to your sales team or leaning into customer feedback. Alternatively, you can use competitive monitoring and social listening to learn what other companies your audience is interested in.

It’s also important to identify your SEO competitors as they can sometimes differ from your business competitors. You can find SEO competitors by using keyword research tools to check who’s ranking for your target keywords.

Conduct in-depth market research

The next step is market research to gather and organize information about your competitors, customers and industry.

Deep dive into particular customer segments with detailed customer profiles that will guide your marketing decisions later on. A social analytics tool like Sprout Social helps you conduct market research on social channels using advanced social media listening. Build sophisticated Listening queries to track millions of conversions happening around key topics and get a complete scope of your data to analyze insights by adjusting key filters as well without changing queries.

Keep track of your competitors’ social strategies, find out what’s working in your market and learn how well customer needs are being met.

Compare your product offerings

Compare your product to your competitors for quality, price, customer service and other areas to reveal your differentiators. Use social listening to gather information as well as scout forums like G2, Capterra and TrustPilot for unbiased opinions on your product and the competition.

It’s not compulsory to compare every feature you and your competitors offer. Instead, focus on only those relevant to the objectives of your analysis.

Compare your marketing strategies

Research the marketing and sales strategies of each competitor to understand how they conduct business. The goal is to analyze the factors behind their success and use those insights to inform your strategy. Investigate details such as their content marketing plans, influencer collaborations and sales channels. Look at the channels they use to communicate and engage with customers, promote their business and drive the most visibility.

The report should show how each competitor tells their brand story and the value they deliver to customers. These insights will help with clarifying your position and messaging to differentiate your brand and stand out among competitors.

Run a SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis helps you evaluate your competitive position by laying out your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats based on all the data you’ve gathered. For instance, competitor analysis can help you collect key information through strategic social listening using filters like keywords, content type, social networks, common themes in Listening data and so on, so you can synthesize key areas the business needs to focus on across the competitive landscape. It’s also a great way to visualize all your research in an easy-to-understand and shareable format.

Show your position in the competitive landscape

Finally, a competitive analysis report must show where your business and every important competitor stands in the competitive landscape. This can be achieved by pinpointing the two most important dimensions for competitiveness in your market and mapping them on a matrix alongside your company and its competitors.

With that, you’ll get a clear idea of your position based on the SWOT analysis you created earlier. Conclude the report by making recommendations that serve the original purpose of the competitive analysis.

Examples of competitive analysis reports

Here are some sample scenarios showing the details a competitive analysis report should focus on.

1. Increasing market share

To create a competitive analysis report focused on increasing market share, you must first start with a thorough product analysis. Identify and compare the core features and functionality of your competitors’ products against yours. Consider how their products meet the pressing needs of customers and look for areas of dissatisfaction you can capitalize on.

Evaluate the overall target market, including the customer segments your competitors focus on and their marketing strategies. By studying their positioning, messaging and marketing channels, you’ll discover underserved customer segments or areas of overlap in the market. The report should outline the opportunities gleaned from the analysis and recommend possible ways to address the needs and preferences of the untapped market segment.

2. New product launch

For a competitive report on a new product launch, start with a marketing competitive analysis to identify your direct and indirect competitors. Analyze their market share, product offerings and pricing strategies to determine the best ways to position your product, establish a strong presence and win customers early.

Consider the quality of each competing product, including its user experience and technological capabilities. Look for areas where your product can leverage emerging technology to gain a competitive edge. Also evaluate your competitors’ customer service and support offerings, including their return policies to identify how you can use superior customer service to build trust and loyalty quickly.

3. SEO campaigns

A competitive analysis report for an SEO campaign should focus on evaluating the content marketing, social media presence and SEO strategies of competitors. Analyze the keywords, content types and promotional strategies that drive the most organic traffic and customers for their business. On social channels, monitor their engagement levels, posting frequency, top-performing content and audience growth. These insights are useful for comparing and benchmarking your performance.

The report should also cover local search optimization and online advertising efforts for a comprehensive view of your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

Top competitive analysis reporting tools

Competitive monitoring tools help optimize the research process, analyze multiple data points and deliver data-driven insights you can use immediately.

Check out these three tools that help streamline the process of creating competitive analysis reports.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social provides powerful tools to help you monitor your competitors’ performance across social platforms like Instagram, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter).

It allows you to benchmark your social performance against your top competitors so you can truly understand your brand’s social health. Sprout’s Advanced Listening tool helps you tap into conversations about you, your industry and competitors across social channels, review sites and communities.

With its powerful AI technology, you can sift through millions of conversations to uncover insights about key topics, your audience and industry in seconds. Those insights help you measure your share of voice (SOV), develop crisis management strategies and identify new market opportunities.

With access to tools like Premium Analytics and Sprout’s suite of competitive reports, you can easily visualize and show the impact of in-depth competitive analysis research. Your report can include:

• Customized metrics based on your business goals and team’s priorities
• Interactive charts and graphs that illuminate critical social data
• Custom date range comparisons for performance benchmarking.

And with Sprout’s dynamic shareable link, you can quickly share the report with your team and external shareholders outside Sprout.

Kompyte

Kompyte gathers competitive intelligence from millions of data points, including social, website, content, ads, reviews, job postings and more. The platform uses artificial intelligence to filter through the noise and deliver actionable insights on your competitors.

It automatically organizes competitive data into battle cards highlighting differentiators, market feedback, revenue and everything else your sales teams need to win deals.

Crayon

Crayon uses artificial intelligence to track your competitors and also gives you alerts based on your requirements. It analyzes social content, reviews, press releases, pricing updates and other information to collect and provide insights into top competitors to keep your teams informed with relevant data.

Crayon allows you to create customizable reports and use battle cards, newsletters and announcements to share competitive intelligence data with your team.

Use competitive analysis reporting to grow your business

A competitive report is a compilation of data and statistics that empowers your company to make informed decisions and develop effective strategies. Once you compile the information from your competitive intelligence, you’ll be able to follow up on your findings with a clear action plan to boost your business.

Sprout can help streamline your competitive research process, benchmark your performance against the competition and create comprehensive reports that highlight your most critical data in an engaging way. Sign up for a free trial to try it for yourself.

The post How to build a competitive analysis report with examples and tools appeared first on Sprout Social.

Between their highly engaged audiences, content quality and the social proof they bring, influencers offer brands something they can’t get from other marketing channels—pure authenticity. When you optimize your influencer marketing spend, you get more out of your marketing budget.

Of course, you can’t optimize before you organize, which is why we created this handy influencer marketing budget template. It will help you:

• Maintain a birds-eye view of your budget so you can strategically allocate resources toward the right high-value partnerships
• Control costs by setting clear spending limits and guidelines for various points of contact across your team
• Head into contract negotiations with a firm grasp of your financial boundaries and opportunities

Download the influencer marketing budget template to start planning your next activation.

The post An Influencer Marketing Budget Template Designed to Drive Efficiency appeared first on Sprout Social.

Staying on top of the latest social media stats will help you anticipate changes and fine-tune your strategy accordingly. This is particularly true for a platform like Instagram, which evolves rapidly with new features.

So let’s take a look at some of the top Instagram stats that will inform your strategy for 2024.

Table of contents

• Instagram user statistics
• Instagram usage statistics
• Instagram audience and demographics statistics
• Instagram advertising and marketing statistics
• Instagram Stories and Reels statistics
• Instagram for business statistics
• Instagram influencer statistics
• Making the most of these Instagram stats

Instagram user statistics

Understanding how people perceive and use the platform will help you understand the best way to connect with them. This will help you develop Instagram best practices to implement in your strategy. These Instagram user statistics can give you a better look:

1. Almost every Instagram user uses the app alongside other platforms

According to data from Kepios, only 0.2% of Instagram users are unique to the platform. A large number of users use it alongside other social media platforms such as Facebook (80.8%), YouTube (77.4%) and TikTok (52.8%). That means having a solid cross-platform marketing strategy is crucial for your brand to succeed.

2. Posting/sharing photos or videos continues to be the top activity

In previous years, people were largely using Instagram to post or share photos and videos. The numbers aren’t changing much in 2024 with the Kepios report showing that 70.4% of users are using the platform for this reason. This indicates a desire for users to be creative and express themselves.

3. People are seeking entertainment on the platform

The same report shows that people are increasingly using the platform for entertainment. Looking for funny or entertaining content was the second most popular activity, with 64.8% of users engaging in it. So brands should get ahead by creating Instagram content that can entertain their audience.

Instagram usage statistics

How popular is Instagram in terms of usage? Let’s take a look at these Instagram usage statistics to find out:

4. There are 2 billion monthly active users on Instagram

Latest reports show that Instagram has 2 billion monthly active users. While not at the Facebook level (over 3 billion), this is still huge for brands on Instagram. With the right strategies to get more Instagram followers, these users could turn into loyal fans of your brand.

5. US adults spend 33 minutes per day on the platform

Video-based platforms like YouTube and TikTok have become a huge hit among social media users. At the same time, people are still spending a significant amount of time on Instagram. In fact, time spent on Instagram has seen a slight increase in the past year. U.S. adults are spending 33.1 minutes per day on the platform. This is a 3-minute increase from the previous year.

Source: Insider Intelligence

Instagram audience and demographics statistics

Understanding Instagram’s demographics data gives you an idea of the types of people who use the platform. This helps you assess whether the platform is relevant to your target audience. Here’s a quick breakdown of Instagram statistics related to its audience and demographics.

6. There are more male than female users

Based on available data on Instagram users worldwide by gender, there are more male users (51.8%) than female users (48.2%) as of January 2023. The audience is a near even split, meaning the platform isn’t inherently better for reaching one demographic audience over another.

7. Instagram is most popular among younger audiences

The platform sees the highest usage among people aged between 18 and 34. People within these age groups make up over 60% of Instagram’s user base. As such, the platform is ideal if your target audience consists of young adults and Millennials.

Source: Statista

8. India and the United States have the greatest number of users

Much like other platforms, India leads the way even when it comes to Instagram. The country has 229.5 million Instagram users. The United States comes next with 149.35 million users.

Instagram advertising and marketing statistics

Are you getting the most out of your Instagram advertising efforts? Is it even worth it to market your brand on Instagram? Here are a few Instagram stats to give you the answers you need.

9. Instagram ad reach is growing

Along with the increase in users, Instagram is offering an increase in ad reach. The Instagram statistics report from Kepios shows a 12.2% year-over-year increase in ad reach. This makes the platform an ideal choice for brands that want to advertise on Instagram.

10. In-feed ads make up most of the platform’s ad revenue

Oberlo reports that Instagram ad revenue reached $50.58 billion in 2023. Out of this, in-feed ads were a major contributor. Meanwhile, ads on Instagram Stories made up 26.7% of the platform’s ad revenue. In 2024, it’s anticipated that Instagram ad revenue will reach $59.6 billion.

11. Feed ads have a higher click-through rate (CTR) than Stories ads

A likely explanation for the preference of in-feed ads is the higher click-through rate (CTR)

Brafton reports that the CTR for feed ads on Instagram ranges between 0.22% and 0.88%. Meanwhile, Stories ads have a CTR between 0.33% and 0.54%.

These numbers suggest that in-feed ads have a higher potential to drive clicks than Stories ads. However, consider experimenting with different ad placements to see which one works best with your audience.

12. The average cost-per-click (CPC) of Instagram ads is $0.00 – $0.25

Ad costs on Instagram are comparable to other leading platforms like Facebook.

According to a WebFX survey, the CPC for Instagram ads is between $0.00 and $0.25. Impressions cost slightly more, with 46% of companies paying between $0.00 and $4.00 CPM (cost-per-impression) per 1,000 impressions. Meanwhile, you can expect to spend around $0.03 to $0.08 in CPE (cost-per-engagement).

Source: WebFX

13. Brands see an average conversion rate of 1%

Bazaarvoice found that the average conversion rate for top-performing brands on Instagram was 1%. During this analysis, it discovered a close relationship between reach and conversion rate.

Interestingly, it’s no longer just the brands with smaller followings that are boasting higher conversions. Brands having up to 100k followers did see higher-than-average conversions compared to last year (1.1% vs. 0.3%). And those with fewer than 10k followers still boast the highest conversion rate (1.3%), but not as much of a lead as last year (2.6%). However, brands having between 500k and 1 million followers had similar conversion rates as past years (0.7%).

Source: Bazaarvoice

Instagram Stories and Reels statistics

Instagram offers a wide range of content types to choose from, with Stories and Reels being popular options. Check out these Stories and Reels statistics to see how these formats are performing:

14. Story reach rate is picking back up

In spite of a decline in the previous years, the reach rate for Instagram Stories is finally starting to rise again. According to a RivalQ study, smaller brands with under 10k followers experienced the most significant increase (35%) in Story reach rate. Other groups experienced minor increases while the reach rate for mid-size brands flatlined.

Source: RivalIQ

15. Retention rate continues to decline with an increase in the number of frames

The same Rival IQ study found that the number of frames you post to your Instagram Stories determines how well you retain your audience. After a major dip from the first two frames, the median retention rate remains at 81% by the fourth frame. Story retention rate starts to dip below 75% after the seventh frame.

16. Short narrative-type Stories are the most popular format

When it comes to the types of Stories that people want to see, short narratives are the most popular. Thirty-five percent of consumers prefer these types of Stories with a mix of photos, videos and text. Stories with quizzes and polls were another popular option.

So if you’re running out of Instagram Story ideas, use these stats to brainstorm new ideas that engage your audience.

Source: HubSpot

17. Reels still have the highest reach rate

Since their introduction, Reels have continued to surpass other content types in terms of reach. A Socialinsider study found that Reels see an average reach rate of 30.81%. That’s double the reach rate of other content formats. Even in terms of impressions, Reels surpass other post types with 2x more impressions.

However, this upward trend could soon end as the visibility of Reels experiences a slowdown. The RivalIQ study from earlier found that Reels had the smallest increase in reach compared to other post types.

18. Reels engagement is dropping

On that note, engagement rates for Instagram Reels are starting to drop. The SocialInsider study found a 25% decline in Reels engagement over 2023.

That said, the average engagement rate for Instagram Reels still stands at 1.23% per post and it continues to be the most engaging Instagram post type.

Source: SocialInsider

The declining numbers in engagement don’t mean brands should stop creating Reels. Rather, it indicates a need to create Reels content that engages your audience. Check out our Instagram Reel ideas guide to create capitvating Reels and keep up with the competition.

Instagram for business statistics

So far, the benefits of Instagram for marketing your business are clear. Let’s further dive into these Instagram for business stats to really understand its value:

19. 70% of shoppers look to Instagram for their next purchase

Internal Instagram data reveals that 70% of shoppers look to the platform for their next purchase. Meaning this is where people go to find purchase inspiration and discover new products.

20. More than half of Instagram users follow/research brands and products

Although people mostly use Instagram to share and consume content, that’s not the only thing they do. The good news for brands is that plenty of users engage with brands on the platform.

Based on the same Kepios Instagram statistics report above, 62.7% of Instagram users follow or research brands and products on the app. This makes it the third most preferred activity on Instagram, highlighting the platform’s role in informing people’s buying decisions.

More importantly, it’s the most used platform for researching and following brands and products compared to all other social media platforms.

Instagram influencer statistics

Instagram’s place in the influencer marketing landscape continues to solidify. This means that many brands are turning to the platform to execute their influencer marketing campaigns. Here’s a quick look at some leading influencer marketing stats for Instagram:

21. Instagram is the top platform for influencer marketing

Unsurprisingly, Instagram is the most used platform for influencer marketing. The latest stats reveal that 80.8% of marketers plan to use it for influencer marketing in 2024. So if you’re planning to work with influencers, Instagram is a great place to start.

22. Most Instagram influencers are nano influencers

According to Statista, nano influencers having 1,000-10,000 followers make up 65.39% of Instagram influencer accounts. Micro-influencers are the second most popular group making up 27.73% of influencer accounts.

Source: Statista

This is great news for brands, especially with the popularity of nano influencer marketing. It means brands have an abundance of options on the platform to find the perfect influencers with the right niche and engaged audiences.

Making the most of these Instagram stats

The above Instagram statistics give you a clearer picture of the landscape, so you know what you’re up against. Make the most of them to build a solid Instagram marketing strategy for your brand.

The post Instagram statistics you need to know for 2024 [Updated] appeared first on Sprout Social.

So why do so many marketing leaders continue to think of customer care as something that is “another department’s problem?” Marketing and care are two halves of the same whole. Do you care about your brand image? Do you care about overall customer sentiment about your company? Dive deep into your company’s NPS score, and the drivers behind it, and you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about.

The continued and rapid evolution of social media—a channel typically owned by marketing—from an “amplification” touchpoint to a preferred destination for customers seeking support is forcing marketing leaders to play a larger role in their brand’s customer service strategies. Social media has already become essential to brand and consumer relationships; social customer care is now also becoming a bigger piece of the brand experience.

Brands that recognize this—and answer the call with faster, personalized care—are outshining the competition, both in individual interactions and at scale. Let’s take a deeper look at this.

Rethinking the customer journey

Many CMOs orient their team’s strategy around an “ideal” customer journey: Awareness, consideration, purchase. Many other CMOs are also thinking about how customer onboarding, adoption and retention come into play.

How do you deal with bumps in the road during a trial or after a purchase? When product questions, technical problems and missing orders inevitably bubble up, your customers will need to connect with you. And whether or not you show up for them on their channels of choice will influence their overall experience with your brand.

Traditionally, businesses provided customer service on their terms. We all know the feeling of being stuck on hold as the thousandth person in the queue. Or repeating your situation to multiple service reps. Slow, antiquated and frustrating means of communication became the norm for customers.

The old ways aren’t tolerated anymore. According to The Sprout Social Index™, 76% of consumers notice and appreciate when companies prioritize customer support on social, and an additional 76% value how quickly a brand can respond to their needs.

Your customers expect that you will provide fast, quality care on social media—and if you don’t, their loyalty is up for grabs.

The right social customer service interactions can help your customers love you even more…or quickly get them to research alternatives. They touch everyone from people who have never heard of your brand or bought from you, to existing customers and brand advocates. When marketing leaders make customer care a priority in the customer journey, everybody wins.

Building a world-class brand is everyone’s responsibility

Consumers are still price sensitive, audience demographics are in flux and customer needs are evolving at a rapid pace. One bad experience can cost you a customer for life. And when it happens on a public forum like social media, the outcome can be catastrophic.

(It’s a fun time to be a marketer, right?)

The Sprout Social Index™ revealed that 8% of service teams and 16% of marketing teams exclusively own social media customer care. Everyone else was somewhere in the middle. The majority of brands agree both teams must work in harmony to deliver best-in-class service.

When social marketers alone manage social care, it can take several hours (or even days) for customers to be passed to the right service rep or get their questions answered. And when the service team is responsible for all social customer care, they can miss opportunities for positive engagement (in favor of dealing with complaints and escalations) and fail to pass on relevant customer insights.

When marketing and service teams work as partners, service agents can jump in immediately to resolve customer complaints. And social marketers can focus on crafting content, community engagement and interpreting customer data from service team interactions to make better decisions. This kind of collaboration requires both teams have compatible tools and adequate resources.

Collaboration should be more than a handoff

Many service professionals are dissatisfied with their existing tech stacks, and find it challenging to coordinate efforts with other teams. One-off DMs, long email chains and mismatched tools are to blame.

According to Q3 2023 Sprout Social Pulse Survey data, only 25% of customer care professionals rate their teams’ responses to customers on social as excellent, and only 32% are very confident in their team’s ability to handle a sudden influx of customer inquiries on social.

When reflecting on these numbers, alarm bells should sound.

Most care teams are working with piecemeal tech, leaving them underprepared and vital customer intelligence lost in limbo. This is especially concerning when it comes to social. Social is where care and marketing work most closely, and it’s a direct portal to understanding your brand performance, audience and industry. Decentralized, incompatible tools can add up to major opportunity costs.

Without shared tech to tap into social insights, care and marketing teams struggle to increase brand affinity. Almost all (94%) of business leaders agree social media data and insights help build brand reputation and loyalty. Another 88% agree social data is a critical tool in providing customer care.

As the lines between marketing and customer service blur, marketing leaders need to do more than master the handoff of tasks and tickets between their teams. They need to truly work in tandem to shift brand perception—finding processes and tools that increase productivity and surface strategic knowledge.

Customer care gives you a competitive edge

When companies master customer service and marketing collaboration, they create the brand experience audiences are looking for. What marketer out there doesn’t want to be the best of the best?

According to the Index, consumers think the most memorable thing brands can do on social is respond to them. One-on-one engagement trumps publishing volume and jumping on trends. Rather than spamming their followers’ feeds with content, savvy brands prioritize responding to customers and use those interactions to amplify their brand values. Customer care and community engagement tactics have become a content strategy in their own right.

Customer care, and everything it entails (i.e., engaging with comments and questions, review management, personalization, cross-channel support), is the critical piece of the brand perception equation. With the right social data and technology, brands can integrate care into the mix and turn it into a true competitive advantage and revenue driver.

Take Casey’s, the fifth largest pizza chain in the US. The company consistently prioritizes responding to and delighting their customers on social, and has built an impressive care-as-content strategy. They’re quick to respond to customers in their signature empathetic and friendly tone, while addressing unique needs and pain points.

As another example, Patagonia, the outdoor retailer known for its authenticity and community, has a world-renowned brand reputation. Just like the helpfulness they’re known for in-store, the company provides stellar care on social. The people behind their customer care team are quick to jump in with outdoor expertise and information about their repair program and return policy.

This level of orchestration only happens when marketing and customer service teams are in lock step.

Positive brand perception hinges on quality customer care

Customer service and marketing teams must be more aligned than ever before.

But CMOs and marketing leaders can’t let incompatible tech stacks and departmental silos define the customer experience. To truly deliver an amazing customer experience across the funnel, you must work with your customer service team to forge new processes, invest in the right resources and unite your teams in an unprecedented way.

Looking for more on the evolving customer care landscape, and how you can guide your company with an innovative strategy? Read about how Social Customer Care by Sprout Social fosters collaboration, enriches customer experiences and synthesizes customer data.

The post Marketing leaders: If you’re not hyper-focused on customer care, you’re setting your org up to fail appeared first on Sprout Social.

In this article, we dive deep into the benefits of influencer marketing, and ones that matter the most to your C-Suite. Plus, the three critical components of an effective influencer marketing strategy you need to know.

3 elements to a successful influencer marketing strategy

An influencer marketing campaign uses individuals with a strong social following to promote a brand. Ogilvy research shows that 75% of B2B companies have already jumped on board, realizing its immense potential. This shift underlines a universal truth: trusted figures influence our purchase decisions.

But you don’t realize the benefits of influencer marketing by simply collaborating with someone with a high follower count. It has to be strategic.

Here are the three key elements you need to keep in mind.

Align with the right influencers

Align with the right influencers for your brand. When you do, your brand’s message resonates with an already engaged audience. That’s why it’s important to find influencers whose values, style and audience match your brand’s. It’s also important to align influencer activities with platforms that drive high engagement and conversion rates.

Take Pipedrive, for example. They collaborate with Productivity Consultant Paul Minors, whose expertise mirrors the needs and interests of Pipedrive’s core audience.

Integrate it with your overall marketing strategy

Your influencer marketing efforts need to blend with and amplify your brand’s core marketing message. This also means establishing consistent messaging across all platforms. This approach creates stronger emotional engagement and achieves prolonged brand recollection, as well as stronger brand positioning.

Think long-term impact

According to our Q3 2023 Sprout Pulse Survey of 307 US-based social marketers, 33% prioritize long-term partnerships with influencers over one-off campaigns. This is not surprising, given the amount of effort that goes into influencer collaborations. It also gives you a consistent audience.

Partnering with influencers who exhibit fresh perspectives and innovative ideas by keeping up with industry changes also keeps your brand relevant and forward-thinking.

These strategies combine to give you benefits of influencer marketing beyond immediate gains to foster long-term brand trust and sustainable growth.

The benefits of influencer marketing for your organization

Influencer marketing amplifies your brand’s reach and credibility. This directly aligns with C-suite objectives of long-term revenue growth by enhancing brand engagement, conversions and brand recall. Let’s get into more benefits of influencer marketing.

1. Increases brand awareness

Brand awareness is the foundational element in the consumer decision-making process. It sets the stage for everything else—interest, consideration and finally, the decision to purchase.

An influencer whose audience matches your target market introduces your brand to untapped customer segments, thus enhancing brand awareness. This authentic promotion attracts attention to the brand’s content, products and services, and can lead to higher conversion rates and direct traffic increases.

For instance, Masterclass partners with Basmah Masood, an influencer who focuses on art and photography-related content, to position itself as a leader in creative education and skills development.

Tracking and measuring your influencer performance is also vital. But it can be tricky when you’re analyzing a third-party account.

Our influencer marketing tool, Tagger by Sprout Social, simplifies influencer metric-tracking by enabling you to measure metrics from a third-party account a.k.a. your influencer’s. This way, you get real-time campaign results across all platforms so you can track the engagement rates of your partnerships and present tangible data to decision-makers or your C-Suite team.

2. Builds brand authority

Influencers help your brand achieve a more credible, believable and trusted opinion than it can by itself. A credible influencer distinguishes your brand in saturated markets, positions you as a trusted leader and affirms your brand’s perceived value and reliability. This encourages consumer confidence, translating into higher customer retention rates and the ability to explore competitive pricing.

Korean skincare brand Some by Mi collaborates with dermatologist influencer Dr. Adel (@dermatology.doctor) to lend medical credibility to their products.

3. Enriches your content strategy

The Sprout Social Index™ found 26% of consumers think brands should take risks with their content and 38% think brands should prioritize original content. Influencers inject creativity and freshness into your brand’s narrative. They help you retain the audience’s attention while boosting brand visibility by showcasing innovative uses of products or services and your brand’s commitment to creativity.

Tina Lee, for example, is a travel influencer who creates visually captivating travel content and partners with Adobe to create and enhance her visually stunning travel content.

4. Improves SEO

Influencers increase your brand’s online presence by sending high-quality external links to your website and contributing to social SEO. Their posts, blogs or videos can rank for specific keywords related to your product or industry that lead potential customers directly to your site. Thus, increasing social media engagement and improving your brand’s search rankings.

This heightened social media visibility leads to increased brand recognition and drives additional traffic to your website, acting as a catalyst for higher sales conversions.

5. Enhances customer engagement

Influencer marketing transcends top-of-funnel (TOF) goals by enhancing engagement with their prospects and customer base. This boosts a brand’s visibility and strengthens brand connection, leading to improved loyalty.

Influencers help organizations use these authentic interactions to build a loyal community around their brand. This becomes a powerful asset, driving repeat purchases and increasing customer lifetime value (CLV) through sustained engagement and trust.

Engaging influencers, like Camper the Golden, for Amazon’s dog birthday products transforms passive browsing into interactive experiences, compelling audiences to like, share and comment.

6. Targets niche audiences to amplify reach

Influencer marketing gives you the chance to target niche audiences in a way that feels natural and genuine while exploring an untapped market. A targeted approach ensures your marketing efforts don’t just cast a wide net but are strategically placed where they will make the most impact. It means more efficient use of resources and a higher probability of conversions.

The benefits of influencer marketing execs care about

The way consumers view brands has changed. The Index shows 25% of consumers identify brand memorability with strategic collaborations involving content creators and influencers. It’s all about authenticity and relatability.

The benefits of influencer marketing not only enhance customer experience and your organization’s profile but also offer additional advantages that attract the C-Suite’s attention. Here are five benefits execs want to see.

Improved customer retention

Acquiring new customers can cost five to 25 times more than retaining existing ones. Influencers can alleviate this cost by using their reach to turn one-time buyers into lifelong champions. They also provide unique upselling or cross-selling opportunities. This approach maximizes CLV and ensures a steady stream of repeat purchases and brand advocates.

The 2023 State of Social Media Report also reveals that 94% of business leaders use social media data and insights to build brand reputation and loyalty. This can be instrumental in building online communities where consumers can come together to connect and learn.

Productivity app Notion uses Easlo to build a community for the brand to this end. Thus, reinforcing the product’s value in customers’ minds.

Better understanding of market drivers

For 63% of leaders in our Index, gaining a better understanding of customers is one of the top marketing priorities in 2024. Influencer marketing campaign analytics can provide metrics for more than just surface-level customer reactions. They give you an insight into consumer preferences, behaviors and their unmet needs.

With our influencer marketing tool, Tagger, you can measure your target audiences across multiple platforms and analyze conversations on various topics that mention your brand to find critical brand insights.

Insights like these can reveal immediate and long-term trends to aid brand positioning, resource allocation and product development. Ultimately, these efforts translate to increased market share, stronger brand equity and improved financial performance.

As Tim Clarke, Vice President of Product Marketing at Sprout puts it, “The most innovative leaders recognize influencer marketing is not merely a trend, but a transformative strategy that can propel your brand positioning and product strategy while bridging authenticity with reach.”

Enhanced competitive positioning

Influencer marketing associates your brand with key opinion leaders who command the trust and attention of your target demographic. It also reinforces your product or service’s unique features and benefits over competitors.

“By embracing the power of influencers, brands tap into genuine connections, thereby elevating their brand’s narrative over competitors. It’s not just about partnering with influencers; it’s about strategically aligning with those who can amplify your voice over the din to ultimately attract meaningful engagement that converts,” Clarke notes.

The index also found that 91% of business leaders believe social media data and insights improve competitive positioning and influencer marketing drives this market advantage.

Social media analytics from influencer campaigns offer businesses a continuous lens on competitive positioning by revealing real-time market trends, consumer preferences and competitor strategies. With Sprout, you can automate this process to get important metrics on KPIs such as your Topic summary, themes, keywords, hashtags and demographics.

Use the tool to evaluate how your share of voice increases with each influencer campaign with Sprout’s Listening features. If your share of voice increases after a campaign, your brand has successfully amplified its presence and influence among relevant markets.

Business growth on limited budgets

Influencers require less investment than agencies because they have lower production and distribution costs than traditional media agencies. They’re also more economical than digital ads and yield high engagement rates since these influencers already know your target audience and have a ready, focused following.

As a result, you enrich the customer experience with valuable insights and trusted recommendations while benefiting from growth on a more restrained budget.

Stronger conversion rates and sales impact

In uncertain times, influencers are vital tools for driving sales. They reduce the friction to purchase due to the trust of their followers and also boost sales impact through special discounts, direct links to your website and specific product exposure. The way to reaping the maximum ROI from your influencer campaigns is by regularly measuring how your KPIs are performing.

Tagger helps with this.

Monitor influencer opportunities and keep a pulse on which campaigns are doing well and which ones need improvement. Track your overall social presence with Sprout’s comprehensive reporting and optimize your campaigns with Tagger. Get simplified insights, flexible data visualization and actionable insights for informed decision-making to ensure positive ROI.

Capitalize on influencer marketing to boost your bottom line

Data from social campaigns enables business leaders to think strategically about customer and competitor opportunities. Influencer marketing is just one piece of the puzzle that contributes to a stronger, cohesive strategy—but it’s also a pretty big puzzle.

Marketers need to develop innovative ways to tap into the benefits of influencer marketing and measure their impact to achieve positive ROI. Check out our Future of Social Media guide to future-proof your strategy and create a pivot-and-persist approach to build a resilient arsenal of tactics.

The post The benefits of influencer marketing (+ what the C-Suite cares about) appeared first on Sprout Social.