Latest news with #SproutSocial
Time Business News
4 days ago
- Business
- Time Business News
Unlocking the Power of Instagram Tools
Instagram has evolved far beyond a photo-sharing platform. In 2025, it's a digital marketplace, personal branding tool, and storytelling medium all wrapped into one. To stand out in the crowd, creators and businesses are turning to advanced Instagram tools to grow smarter, not harder. Instagram tools are third-party applications or platform features designed to help users create better content, schedule posts, analyze performance, and even manage engagement. From AI-driven caption generators to analytics dashboards, these tools are transforming how people use Instagram. Content Creation Tools Canva and Adobe Express help in designing eye-catching posts and stories. InShot and CapCut make video editing on-the-go seamless and stylish. Scheduling & Automation Later, Buffer, and Hootsuite allow users to plan content weeks in advance, ensuring consistency and saving time. Automation features also help optimize posting times based on audience behavior. Analytics & Insights Iconosquare and Sprout Social dive deep into engagement metrics, follower growth, and content performance. This data lets creators pivot strategies based on what's actually working. With growing concerns over data privacy and online safety, there's a rising interest in tools that provide anonyig capabilities. These include anonymous story viewers, hidden hashtag analyzers, and private profile tracking apps. While controversial, such tools are increasingly being used by brands for stealth market research and competitor analysis. It's crucial to use them ethically and within Instagram's guidelines to avoid bans or account restrictions. Save Time : Batch scheduling and AI tools reduce manual work. : Batch scheduling and AI tools reduce manual work. Improve Quality : Professional design and editing tools boost content aesthetics. : Professional design and editing tools boost content aesthetics. Gain Insights : Data tells you what your audience loves, so you can deliver more of it. : Data tells you what your audience loves, so you can deliver more of it. Scale Smartly: Tools allow individuals and small teams to manage large-scale operations effectively. The right Instagram tools can turn a casual user into a social media powerhouse. Whether you're building a personal brand, marketing a business, or running an influencer account, integrating these tools into your strategy can accelerate your success. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
Time Business News
6 days ago
- Business
- Time Business News
7 Ways AI in Social Media Marketing is Transforming Brand Engagement in 2025
What if you could decode your audience's preferences before even posting? Imagine launching a campaign with precision so accurate that every click, comment, and share feels inevitable. That's no longer a futuristic dream—it's happening now. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fundamentally changing the dynamics of how brands communicate and convert on social platforms. In this in-depth exploration of AI in Social Media Marketing, you'll learn how to unlock smarter engagement, deeper insights, and sustainable growth. In 2025, AI is no longer optional for marketing teams—it's the pulse that powers high-performance campaigns and proactive content strategies. Whether you're a brand manager, digital marketer, or business owner, integrating AI into your social media strategy is your next competitive edge. AI in Social Media Marketing refers to the integration of machine learning, natural language processing, and predictive analytics into various aspects of social media activities—from content creation and scheduling to audience analysis and customer service automation. Unlike traditional methods that rely heavily on guesswork or static data, AI enables real-time decision-making based on dynamic user behavior and historical data patterns. It's not just about automating tasks like scheduling or responding to queries. Today, AI tools are capable of analyzing sentiment, detecting trends, predicting virality, personalizing content, and even generating creatives that align with brand tone and audience interest. Imagine knowing what kind of post will go viral next month based on today's trends. Predictive analytics in AI helps marketers forecast campaign performance by processing vast amounts of data. Tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite Insights, and Socialbakers use AI to track engagement metrics and compare them with competitor activity. This leads to more informed decisions around content types, posting times, and ad placements. For instance, AI models can identify that your audience is most active at 8 PM on Thursdays and prefers educational content mixed with humor. Using this insight, marketers can align their publishing schedules and tweak the tone for maximum reach and engagement. Social media users express themselves in highly nuanced ways—sarcasm, emojis, slang, and even gifs. AI's capability to conduct sentiment analysis means it can understand the emotional context of a post or comment. This helps brands gauge public perception and pivot quickly if a post sparks controversy or a product gets unexpected praise. Platforms like Brandwatch and MonkeyLearn use AI to segment audience sentiment by region, gender, and even time of day. This information empowers brands to respond contextually and maintain positive engagement. In the old playbook, marketers created a single campaign and hoped it would resonate broadly. With AI, the playbook evolves. AI tools can analyze past engagement data, browsing history, and demographic details to serve tailored content to different segments of an audience. Take Netflix or Spotify's model of personalized recommendations—AI in social media marketing enables similar personalization for brand posts. For example, an AI system might show different variations of the same Instagram ad to users based on their age group, interaction history, or even current mood inferred from recent activity. This hyper-personalized approach not only increases engagement but also reduces ad fatigue, making your campaigns more efficient. AI-powered chatbots have evolved dramatically. Gone are the days of frustrating bots with canned responses. Today's AI-driven chatbots can handle complex queries, guide users through decision-making, and escalate issues when needed. More importantly, they learn from every interaction, making them smarter with time. On social media platforms, this translates to 24/7 customer support, faster resolutions, and higher satisfaction rates. Tools like ManyChat, MobileMonkey, and Chatfuel integrate seamlessly with platforms like Facebook and Instagram, ensuring that no lead or complaint falls through the cracks. One of the most groundbreaking applications of AI in social media is image and video recognition. AI can now scan visual content to detect logos, emotions, objects, and even scenes. For marketers, this unlocks an entirely new layer of user-generated content (UGC) analysis. Suppose a user posts a beach photo with your product in the background but doesn't tag your brand. AI can detect your logo in the image, alert you to the mention, and even assess the sentiment based on facial expressions. This enables brands to capitalize on positive UGC and monitor visual trends around their products or services. While human creativity still reigns supreme, AI tools like Jasper and are proving to be excellent collaborators. These tools can generate caption ideas, ad copy, and even long-form content suggestions based on high-performing templates and language models. This allows marketers to scale content production without sacrificing quality. AI systems can recommend which hashtags to use, what tone will perform better with a specific demographic, and how to repurpose content across platforms—all while maintaining brand voice consistency. What makes this even more impactful is AI's ability to learn from past posts. If certain types of content consistently drive engagement, the AI will prioritize similar outputs. It's content creation backed by data, not just instinct. Social media moves fast, and missing a trend—or worse, being late to a crisis—can cost brands dearly. AI enables marketers to spot micro-trends before they go mainstream. By continuously scanning millions of posts, comments, and hashtags, AI tools detect spikes in conversation volume and keyword usage. This real-time pulse helps brands jump on viral moments or correct course during negative publicity. Instead of reacting days later, AI allows for proactive, real-time brand positioning. Moreover, AI's ability to filter out noise from actual threats or opportunities streamlines decision-making, especially during high-stakes moments like product launches, PR mishaps, or viral campaigns. With great power comes great responsibility. The use of AI in social media marketing must be aligned with ethical standards and data privacy laws like GDPR and India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act. AI tools rely on data—often personal—to make decisions. Ensuring that this data is collected and used transparently is critical to maintaining user trust. Marketers should also avoid the temptation to over-automate, which can make their brand feel impersonal. AI is a tool, not a replacement for genuine human connection. Transparency in how AI is used, giving users control over their data, and maintaining authenticity are crucial to successful and ethical implementation. As AI becomes the new foundation of digital strategy, there is a growing demand for upskilling in this domain. Enrolling in an AI Marketing Course can help professionals stay updated with evolving tools and frameworks. These courses offer hands-on experience with platforms like ChatGPT, Midjourney, Jasper, and more—equipping marketers to drive campaigns with data-driven precision. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced marketer, learning how to integrate AI into social strategies can significantly boost your ROI and career prospects. AI is not just supporting social media marketing—it's reinventing it. From enhanced targeting and predictive engagement to smarter content and conversational bots, AI empowers brands to be more strategic, efficient, and human-centric. Yet, the success of AI in social media marketing hinges on balance—between automation and authenticity, personalization and privacy, innovation and ethics. Marketers who embrace this balance will find themselves not just keeping up but leading the wave of next-gen brand storytelling. As we progress through 2025 and beyond, one thing is clear: the brands winning on social media are the ones that understand AI isn't just a tool—it's a team member. A strategic ally that listens, learns, adapts, and scales in ways humans alone never could. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
SPT Q1 Earnings Call: Enterprise Pipeline and AI-Driven Product Enhancements Take Focus
Social media management software company Sprout (NASDAQ:SPT) reported Q1 CY2025 results topping the market's revenue expectations , with sales up 12.9% year on year to $109.3 million. Guidance for next quarter's revenue was better than expected at $110.8 million at the midpoint, 0.7% above analysts' estimates. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.22 per share was 48.4% above analysts' consensus estimates. Is now the time to buy SPT? Find out in our full research report (it's free). Revenue: $109.3 million vs analyst estimates of $107.6 million (12.9% year-on-year growth, 1.6% beat) Adjusted EPS: $0.22 vs analyst estimates of $0.15 (48.4% beat) Adjusted Operating Income: $12.54 million vs analyst estimates of $9.01 million (11.5% margin, 39.1% beat) The company slightly lifted its revenue guidance for the full year to $451.4 million at the midpoint from $450.6 million Management raised its full-year Adjusted EPS guidance to $0.73 at the midpoint, a 5% increase Operating Margin: -10.2%, up from -13.7% in the same quarter last year Customers: 9,381 Market Capitalization: $1.27 billion Sprout Social's first quarter results reflected increased enterprise adoption and focused product development as key drivers. CEO Ryan Barretto emphasized the company's momentum with large-scale brands, citing new strategic wins in industries such as medical devices, food and beverage, and hospitality. Management attributed growth to robust execution in its go-to-market team, with particular strength in expanding relationships with high-value customers. Notably, Sprout Social's updated influencer marketing platform and integrations with Salesforce and LinkedIn were highlighted as meaningful product advances. The leadership team also discussed continued resilience in customer retention, crediting improvements in onboarding, support, and a newly implemented customer success platform aimed at proactively identifying renewal risks and expansion opportunities. Looking ahead, Sprout Social's management outlined a measured but optimistic outlook, centered on continued enterprise expansion, multi-product adoption, and deeper integration with global partners. Barretto explained, "We're expanding our sales capacity this year and will continue to throughout the first half, which we believe will drive further momentum in our pipeline generation and enterprise coverage." The company expects elongated sales cycles and stable demand trends to persist through the year, but sees opportunities in cross-selling influencer marketing and customer care modules to both existing and new customers. CFO Joe Del Preto noted, 'We remain committed to growing operating leverage on a year-over-year basis, and will continue to evaluate our ability to drive greater profitability as the year progresses,' underscoring a focus on operational discipline as the company invests in its enterprise go-to-market strategy. Management credited the quarter's performance to targeted enterprise wins, expansion of AI-powered solutions, and enhancements in customer care and partnerships, despite a stable but cautious demand environment. Enterprise customer growth: Sprout Social secured several strategic deals with Fortune 500 companies across diverse sectors, leveraging its ability to consolidate social media management for large organizations. The expansion of $50,000+ annual recurring revenue (ARR) customers was driven by tailored solutions addressing complex enterprise needs. Influencer marketing platform rebrand: The company relaunched its influencer marketing product, incorporating AI-powered natural language discovery and advanced creator vetting features. This update was positioned to help brands quickly identify and engage creators, reflecting the company's response to the shift in consumer discovery trends toward social platforms. AI and automation enhancements: Recent releases included AI Assist for content generation, customer care features like Agentforce integration with Salesforce, and accessibility tools such as AI-driven alt text for images. These tools were designed to streamline workflows and improve inclusivity for both customers and end-users. Go-to-market and sales investments: Management increased sales capacity and implemented a new customer success platform, aiming to proactively manage renewals and expansion opportunities. The sales organization's focus on multi-product selling was supported by new compensation plans and account intent signals. Partnership and ecosystem expansion: The company made progress in global partnerships, particularly with Salesforce and AWS, and began building a network of international resellers to boost its presence in Europe and Asia-Pacific. These efforts were seen as long-term accelerators for pipeline growth and market access. Sprout Social's outlook is shaped by enterprise sales momentum, multi-product expansion, and ongoing investment in strategic partnerships, all while navigating a cautious macro environment. Enterprise pipeline expansion: Management anticipates that growing enterprise pipeline coverage, combined with increased sales capacity, will sustain revenue growth. The company is targeting higher-value customers and larger deals, with the expectation that enterprise adoption will drive average contract value upward. Product cross-sell and adoption: The company's push for multi-product adoption, particularly influencer marketing and customer care modules, is expected to increase both customer retention and wallet share. Leadership sees significant room to deepen penetration within the existing customer base and to upsell new customers at the point of sale. Macro stability and operational discipline: While Sprout Social does not expect the demand environment to improve in the near term, management is focused on maintaining operational flexibility and margin improvement through disciplined hiring and expense management. The company is also monitoring risks related to tariffs and federal spending cuts that could affect customer budgets. In the coming quarters, our analysts will focus on (1) continued growth in enterprise pipeline and conversion rates, (2) adoption rates of new AI-powered influencer and customer care products, and (3) the expansion of global partnerships, especially through new reseller channels in Europe and Asia-Pacific. Execution on multi-product cross-sell and sustained operational discipline will also be important markers. Sprout Social currently trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 2.7×. In the wake of earnings, is it a buy or sell? Find out in our full research report (it's free). Market indices reached historic highs following Donald Trump's presidential victory in November 2024, but the outlook for 2025 is clouded by new trade policies that could impact business confidence and growth. While this has caused many investors to adopt a "fearful" wait-and-see approach, we're leaning into our best ideas that can grow regardless of the political or macroeconomic climate. Take advantage of Mr. Market by checking out our Top 9 Market-Beating Stocks. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 183% over the last five years (as of March 31st 2025). Stocks that made our list in 2020 include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,545% between March 2020 and March 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-small-cap company Exlservice (+354% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today.
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Braze (BRZE) Q1 Earnings: What To Expect
Customer engagement software provider Braze (NASDAQ:BRZE) will be reporting earnings tomorrow after market close. Here's what to expect. Braze beat analysts' revenue expectations by 3% last quarter, reporting revenues of $160.4 million, up 22.5% year on year. It was a strong quarter for the company, with accelerating customer growth and EPS guidance for next quarter exceeding analysts' expectations. It added 85 customers to reach a total of 2,296. Is Braze a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it's free. This quarter, analysts are expecting Braze's revenue to grow 17.1% year on year to $158.6 million, slowing from the 33.1% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.05 per share. Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Braze has a history of exceeding Wall Street's expectations, beating revenue estimates every single time over the past two years by 3.8% on average. Looking at Braze's peers in the sales and marketing software segment, some have already reported their Q1 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Sprout Social delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 12.9%, beating analysts' expectations by 1.5%, and Upland reported a revenue decline of 10%, topping estimates by 3.1%. Sprout Social traded up 9.8% following the results while Upland was also up 16%. Read our full analysis of Sprout Social's results here and Upland's results here. There has been positive sentiment among investors in the sales and marketing software segment, with share prices up 10.5% on average over the last month. Braze is up 15.4% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $49.70 (compared to the current share price of $36.26). Today's young investors likely haven't read the timeless lessons in Gorilla Game: Picking Winners In High Technology because it was written more than 20 years ago when Microsoft and Apple were first establishing their supremacy. But if we apply the same principles, then enterprise software stocks leveraging their own generative AI capabilities may well be the Gorillas of the future. So, in that spirit, we are excited to present our Special Free Report on a profitable, fast-growing enterprise software stock that is already riding the automation wave and looking to catch the generative AI next. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Needham Maintains Buy Rating on Sprout (SPRT) After Positive Customer Review
On May 28, Needham's analyst Scott Berg maintained a Buy rating on Sprout Social, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPT) while keeping the price target unchanged at $32. The analyst noted Caesars Entertainment Inc (NASDAQ:CZR), whose uses Sprout's platform highlighted its effectiveness thereby building a value proposition for the company. In addition, Sprout Social, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPT) also introduced a series of new features and upcoming enhancements designed to transform how brands provide customer care on social media. A marketing manager in a boardroom making decisions about the company's social media management platform. Earlier in May, the company delivered its Q1 2025 results highlighting 13% year-over-year revenue growth and improved total remaining performance obligations (RPO) of $360.2 million. Analyst Scott Berg believes the company's strategic edge lies in the simplicity, ease of implication, and solid management abilities of its platform. Sprout Social, Inc. (NASDAQ:SPT) is a cloud-based social media management platform that allows businesses to manage, measure, and optimize their online presence across multiple social media networks and commerce platforms. While we acknowledge the potential of SPT as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than SPT and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about the . READ NEXT: and . Disclosure: None. Sign in to access your portfolio
