Connect & Discuss

What giveaway picker/tools would you would recommend and why? Is there one that has more options in terms of conditions/parameters?We are about to run our first engagement focused giveaway on our social media accounts (IG & FB). Any other advice on running a giveaway that you can share from your own experience would be greatly appreciated!

Has anyone had experience managing a personal LinkedIn (or other) profile of their CEO? Looking for best practices on customer complaints and if responses should come from CEO or Brand’s social page. Thinking of connecting my CEO’s personal profile to Sprout and interested in any experience on the matter. 

Hey everyoneI’m curious—do any of you have coffee rituals that help you get into the zone for work or brainstorming? Whether it’s a specific type of coffee, a brewing method, or even the perfect cup temperature, I’d love to hear what helps you stay focused and energised during your day.Thanks!

Happy New Year, and welcome to The Arboretum! 🎉We’re thrilled to kick off 2025 with amazing new members like you—and to celebrate, we’re hosting a special New Year Giveaway! 🌟 How to Enter: Introduce yourself to the community and share:Your name, your role, and what brought you to social media. Your favorite platform and why you love it. A campaign you’ve worked on or admired.💡 Bonus Points: Share your top social media tip or a trend you’re keeping an eye on!Prizes: Two lucky participants will win exclusive Arboretum swag. Think cozy, creative, and perfect for your work-from-home vibe!Deadline: Join

It seems like all the extra things Sprout does are always geared at an American audience. All the webinars you do are during times that are after the workday finishes in Europe. This means that none of your European customers can join live and benefit from asking questions, connecting with people in the comments and etc. In addition, this year’s Giveaway Extravaganza emails were sent at 4:30pm in the UK, which would be 5:30 or even 6:30pm in Europe. By the time we’ve seen the email the next day, the competition of the day is already closed. So again, we can’t participate. I also assume you’re not shipping prizes internationally, so we wouldn’t be able to claim anything even if we do win. In which case you could at least exclude us from emails that aren’t relevant. It genuinely feels like we’re missing out on so much and are overlooked as a customer group.  

Hi fellow social media friends :) My name is Lindsey Weitz, and I am a social media manager for an Automotive Group in Upstate NY. I am a Virginia Tech alum (Go Hokies), but I’ve lived in the Upstate NY area my whole life. Outside of work I love to watch football (Go Giants), watch Formula 1, cook, do anything in the art realm, and travel! My position is brand new within the auto group, and I’m starting from zero when it comes to building their social strategy. I create all the content myself, so I’m always working in Adobe. One of my professional goals for next year is to get better at After Effects. So, if any of you are also social media managers in the automotive industry, I’d love to connect and hear more about how you’ve crafted your strategy! 

Social media naturally comes with its share of challenges and I’ve had plenty of venting moments with my team, but when I think back on the year, there are so many wins to celebrate! We’ve already surpassed all of our social media goals and KPIs for the year. I was able to double our goal for number of reels posted, and I created a TikTok channel from the ground up this year. One of my favorite wins: I had a couple instances this year of posting reels highlighting local businesses (I do destination marketing), and then hearing from business owners that they saw an influx of business after the reel was posted. I can look at analytics all day, but none of it is quite as motivating as knowing my work has real impact on my community! It’s so easy to get sucked into the day-to-day frustrations, so rounding up our EOY reports and stats and looking back on the year is a really needed opportunity to look at the bigger picture and see how much my and my team’s hard work has pai

💪🏻 A couple weeks back, I finally figured out a to-do list system that works for me, which is a really big win! (I change my system every couple of years depending on the circumstances - if I don’t have a working system, my life literally spirals out of control 😂) 👎🏻 Our parent company decided that we should all share a Canva account, so I had to transfer everything (uploads, designs) from my current into the new account - which was an absolute nightmare. You can’t “bulk download” or “bulk transfer” anything in Canva - whatever you do, it has to be done individually.First, I had to download every single upload (500+) from my account to upload them again in the new account. That completely messed up the order of the material in the new uploads folder. I had already gotten so used to that specific order. 😅Then I had to share every individual existing design with my new account via email and open the link I was sent in my email program in an incognito tab (b

Over the course of 2024, I’ve used the time to learn AI prompt engineering using online courses, eBooks, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. I feel it’s critical to know how to optimally leverage the technology rather than be overwhelmed by it.As the quote goes, "You will not be replaced by AI, but by someone using AI," Laurence Liew, director for AI Innovation at AI Singapore. So, I’ll be someone who is able to use AI when and how I want to in the course of my work. Keeping with the curve, if not ahead of it, feels like a win!

One of my recent wins I wanted to share was a collaboration post we did on Instagram with another account, and it has been gaining a lot of traction. Our follower growth has significantly increased, and the engagement on the post itself is constantly growing. I’m glad to see that this collab has been successful for us, and I am excited to do more in 2025 😊 Has anyone else done any collaboration posts that benefited their pages?

It’s officially grind time to start working on our year-end recap for both our social channels and team reports. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been refining what I want the “End of Year Recap” to look like on social, and I’ve had some mild success with it.I use the Reports tab in Sprout to find and highlight the top posts from the year. Since we’re a healthcare organization, most of these are patient stories, which is great because it allows us to give them some well-deserved recognition again. Specifically on LinkedIn, I’ll reshare the top-performing blogs, noting that they are our most viewed posts of the year, and it usually gets decent engagement.I’m curious—what does your brand or company do, if anything, to recap the previous year? I’d love to hear your ideas and brainstorm together!

LOL, I’m kind of joking with the title, but sometimes it’s a nice break when all of Meta goes down! Unless you desperately needed something to go out, then it’s a big dislike. 

ChatGPT helps me with a lot of things every day, so I asked it: “based on what you know about me, what do I like about social media?” And she nailed it! Based on what I know about you, one thing I think you like about social media is its ability to build authentic connections through storytelling and personality. You seem to enjoy blending creativity (like humor, emojis, and visuals) with meaningful messaging that resonates with both audiences and brand values. Social media, for you, seems to be a space where you can celebrate team wins, share clever takes on trends, and highlight the human side of businesses—whether it's through employee stories, event highlights, or showcasing volunteer efforts. It’s about making content relatable, impactful, and engaging. Let me know if I’m on the right track!

Who else is endlessly frustrated with reach on Instagram? Or changes to Meta platforms that nobody wants?Mosseri talked last week about wanting to boost small creators, but doesn’t address the problems we’ve been dealing with for years. And this Meta AI is nothing but annoying. Some days I wish I could leave IG altogether, if I’m being honest. 

We’ve had a ton of success posting Carousels (Document posts) on LinkedIn this year. The engagement is off the carts - typically about 3-4X the engagement we’d see from an image post, and even higher than a video post (most of our image posts perform better than our video posts on LI). Plus, they’re a great format to share more complex/in-depth messaging.