This week on Sprout Social Insights we tackled guides for Facebook, Twitter, and small business to help you better reach your customers with the social media tools that make a difference.

Check out our articles below to find out more about each one and how they can help you with your social media goals.

And check in every day to Sprout Social Insights for more how to guides and breaking social media news.

How Many People Does Your Business Need on Its Social Media Team?

The idea of assembling a social media team is new enough for businesses that there isn’t a clear rule for how many people a company might need to handle all the tasks. Do you need a social media manager or a community manager, and do you know the difference?

Small and mid-sized businesses can get by with a lone ranger as your whole team, but that could increase the person’s risk of burnout, leading to a lower quality of work and high potential for mistakes. And for larger brands, it could feel like you need dozens of people to stay vocal on all the major networks.

What’s the magic number for the perfect team? As with so many elements of social media strategy, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. However, there are several points to consider as you make hiring decisions about the size and composition of your team. Here are some important questions for your company to ask. [ Read More... ]

4 Twitter Tools That Deserve a Second Look

It’s Twitter Tip Tuesday — every Tuesday we’ll focus on one Twitter Tip and show you how to integrate it into your social media strategy.

Last week we showed you five innovative Twitter tactics that can help you up your Twitter game from beginner to seasoned pro. This week, we’re showcasing four complementary Twitter tools that you can use for (among other things) competitive intelligence and self-promotion. In some cases, these tips represent Twitter tools — or features of these tools — that not everyone is using, so they can help you get the upper hand on your competition.

Look for links to the original articles where’ll you’ll find more detailed information and instructions on how to implement these very effective Twitter tools.
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Why Gilt City Sets a Standard for Facebook Timeline Presence

Local, city-living deal service Gilt City is cultivating an air of coolness and exclusivity, and its Facebook strategy for connecting with its customers furthers that members-only atmosphere. The tenets of its strategy can inspire social media managers and marketers who are looking for best practices to study and learn from.

Gilt City is a service for getting deals on unique lifestyle events in major cities, encouraging people to check out the best experiences that their neighborhoods have to offer. It operates in just seven cities, so the company can really focus on finding the cream of the crop in cultural offerings. The company also emphasizes lifestyle as much as its deals. As it says in its Facebook description, “It’s about inspiring members to live well, every day.”

The company’s Facebook strategy centers on strong follower engagement and smart use of images. Those are areas of focus used by many other companies, from Skittles to Chanel, but Gilt City is a great example of how to achieve equally positive results for a smaller brand that doesn’t yet have a well-established reputation. Here are four steps that Gilt City has taken to generate its Facebook success. [ Read More... ]

Sprout Social Celebrates 2 Years and 10,000 Customers

It’s been two years since Sprout Social debuted its powerful social media management tool and platform, and it’s been an exciting ride so far. Since those first steps we’ve surpassed 10,000 customers and dozens of new tools to help our customers manager their social media channels more effectively. Today our social engagement platform helps our customers manage more than 30 million customer interactions per month.

We’re grateful to all of our customers for making Sprout Social a part of their day-to-day efforts to provide world-class customer experiences. Just a couple of months ago, Sprout Social was recognized by Info-Tech Research as the industry-leading product in its Social Media Management Landscape report.

We’re daily surprised and thrilled at the creative and effective ways our customers are using Sprout Social to strengthen their relationships with their own customers. [ Read More... ]

How to Make a Gorgeous Twitter Header Image

Remember what a splash Facebook made when it introduced Timeline’s cover photos? Many brands quickly realized the potential of using a commanding image as the centerpiece for their Facebook Pages. Now, Twitter has jumped on the bandwagon with the introduction of a header image.

This change gives Twitter more potential for giving your brand visual personality. You now have three images to convey your branding: profile photo, header image, and background photo. It will be important for your company to present a strong look to all three visual components of your Twitter profile. Here are some tips on how to prepare and upload an eye-catching visual for the header. We’ve also got a few examples of brands that got it right, as well as a few that could use some help.
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Spotlight on Startups: MyPermissions Is Your Applications Watchdog

At Sprout Insights, we comb the web to bring you the most up-to-date and actionable resources on how to use social media to grow your business.

To that end, we’re pleased to present the Sprout Insights series Spotlight on Startups. We’ll find the most innovative, useful startup companies out there, get the inside track on what they’re doing, and tell you how you can leverage their products and services for your own business.

This week we’re pleased to cast the spotlight on MyPermissions — an Israeli-based startup that tells you what social apps have access to your private information. [ Read More... ]

How to Interpret Every Twitter Metric in Sprout Social’s Reports

The articles here at Sprout Insights are written to keep you informed about ways to improve your social media presence. But beyond this publication, Sprout Social has tools that help you track and control that presence.

We’ve covered how users of Sprout Social can create beautiful reports that chart your company’s presence on either Twitter or Facebook. Knowing how to interpret what you see in those reports is the key to capitalizing on what the tool has to offer. Once you can analyze the data, you’ll be able to see how your current strategy is working and track how changes impact performance.

Here’s a walk-through of the metrics in the Twitter reports and how you can use that information to make a stronger social media strategy. If you don’t have a Sprout Social account already, you can sign up for a free trial and explore these reports for yourself. [ Read More... ]

Social Media and Search Engine Marketing: How They Work Together

Website traffic is the currency of the Internet. And two of the most cost-effective solutions for small business owners to build that traffic is through search and social media.

As the Internet continues to mature beyond Web 2.0, we are experiencing a paradigm shift that’s actually combining the worlds of search and social. Let’s examine search vs. social, how these marketing strategies work together, and what that means for your company now and in the future.

Search’s popularity and value to businesses comes from its ability to help consumers find relevant companies, products, and services. While people might log onto Facebook for no particular reason, if someone visits Google, they’re looking for something specific. Econsultancy found that 61 percent of consumers use search engines to help them in product research, so it’s clear what a vital role search plays in the sales cycle. [ Read More... ]

6 Brands With Killer Facebook Strategies (And What They Teach Us)

It’s Facebook Friday — each week we’ll offer one tip for leveraging Facebook to increase customer awareness of and engagement with your brand or business. This week, we’re listing several brands that have set a remarkable example for effective Facebook strategy.

Each of these brands was highlighted in the ongoing Sprout Insights series on Facebook brand strategy. Taking a close look at each of them can teach community managers and social media marketers new ways to engage with customers and build brand awareness on the world’s largest social network.

And on top of these, if you have a recommendation for other readers (and us) on other brands to look at for inspiration, please feel free to chime in. We get a big kick out of seeing effective social media management. The creativity we see out there among social media managers is just remarkable. [ Read More... ]

[Image credits: Saad Faruque, Andreas Eldh, MyPermissions, Magnus Akselvoll]