How Sprout Social Helps Media Cause Deliver Value to Clients

Agency life is stressful at the best of times.

It’s demanding to work with multiple clients—each with their own specific wants and needs—at a breakneck pace each day.

Now imagine your clients are trying to save the world.

Welcome to the everyday reality of Media Cause, a social impact and non-profit marketing agency.

“We work specifically with the ‘do good’ space, so all our clients are non-profits or social enterprises,” said Taylor Johnston, Account Director at Media Cause. “Building and engaging communities is a big part of our work. And for most organizations that takes place on social.”

When Media Cause needs to create efficiency and scale for these mission-driven organizations, it turns to Sprout Social.

“Social media is one of the most powerful tools to connect a large group of people, but also to do so in a way that creates change and movement,” Johnston said. “There’s really no other tool out there that allows that ability of amplification, with people able to create dialogue with each other and create this community where there’s back and forth between organizations and their supporters.”

Simplifying Social

No two days are the same at Media Cause, but it’s safe to say Sprout Social usually plays a role.

“On a day-to-day basis, we use Sprout to schedule content, find opportunities to engage with supporters and identify influencers,” Johnston said. “We frequently use the reporting and social listening tools. Part of our social listening also means using the discovery tool to find new conversations and opportunities. Most of our clients want to have the biggest voice possible, so it’s our job to find ways to get them in bigger conversations or in front of the right people.”

Accomplishing this with so many different clients and internal team members—some of whom are on opposite ends of the US— is made possible thanks to Sprout’s group functionality.

“All our clients have their own groups, which makes it tremendously helpful for us to collaborate internally across coasts, as well as with our clients,” Johnston said.

With so many stakeholders collaborating through Sprout Social, ease of use is a top priority.

“Sprout’s interface is clean, user-friendly and makes it easy to schedule content, collaborate and navigate the platform,” Johnston said. “Other platforms can be clunky and wonky and not as easy to use. Being able to schedule content, report on performance and use social listening all in one place makes our lives much easier.”

Delivering Value & Impact

Successful agencies must consistently provide value to clients in order to retain business and grow accounts. For Media Cause, value is often measured in impact—money raised, volunteers recruited and actions taken. Sprout Social empowers Johnston and her colleagues to move beyond just posting content to drill down into what communities want and need from an organization.

“Sprout has allowed us to analyze data and discover several opportunities for our clients,” Johnston said. “Whether we’re using the discovery tool, social listening or the competitive report, it allows us to unleash data that we do not have access to from native social platforms. By leveraging Sprout, we’ve been able to identify conversations and social influencers that our clients can engage with, which allows them to better amplify their brands, build awareness and activate new and existing supporters. Sprout enables us to do our jobs more effectively, which is great for client success and retention.”

Sprout’s data analysis and reporting capabilities also make it simple to spotlight the value Media Cause offers its clients.

“On a weekly basis we are pulling platform and tag reports to see how our clients are performing week over week,” Johnston said. “We use social listening frequently as well. Any time there is an event or a breaking news story where a client is trying to capture some of the dialogue, we use social listening reporting. Across the board, clients are looking to see how much impact they’re having. For some clients, this could just be impressions and new followers. For others, this could mean link clicks driving petition signatures.”

Take the case of one of Media Cause’s not-for-profit clients operating in the environmental space. In August 2017, on a year-over-year basis, the client saw a nearly 50% increase in audience growth across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, including a:

• 52% increase in Facebook fans.
• 89% increase in Twitter link clicks.
• 117% increase in Instagram followers.

For an organization hoping to rally people to its cause and inspire activism, such growth represented a major success.

Partnering for Success

Media Cause is more than a Sprout Social client—it’s a partner.

“We love Sprout’s Agency Partner Program!” Johnston said. “It’s great being able to communicate directly with the company and voice our feedback or reach out if we need anything. The access to other agencies and agency-specific resources is also very valuable.”

Among other perks, members of Sprout Social’s Agency Partner Program gain access to:

• Training and materials to help educate current clients and attract new business.
• Reports and other content to prove the ROI of social media.
• Managers and success teams that assist with sales and business scalability.
• Leads from the Sprout Social Marketplace.

“The best part of the program for our clients is us being able to have access to new features and tools before others,” Johnston said. “This allows Media Cause to push the envelope for our clients and try new things to help them better achieve their goals and make an impact. The agency program has made it easier for us to collaborate with our clients and cut down account management time spent in feedback. We have reviewed and trialled several social media tools and Sprout is by far the best. None of the other platforms have an agency program or responsive account managers like Sprout.”

Agency clients expect results and they expect them immediately. Sprout Social helps Media Cause deliver.