Three options catch your eye: one with 500 glowing reviews and a 4.8 star rating, another with 140 reviews averaging two stars and a third with zero reviews.

Chances are, you’ll go with the first one.

That’s social proof in action: a psychological concept that explains how other people’s opinions shape what we buy and who we trust.

Here’s how your brand can use social proof to win sales and competitive advantage.

What is social proof?

Social proof is the idea that people look to others when deciding what to do. Whether that’s checking reviews before buying, following a trending account or choosing the busiest restaurant in town, we trust choices others have already validated.

In marketing, social proof works as a trust signal that tips the scale in your favor. Online reviews, testimonials, customer stories, influencer shoutouts and even community size all prove that people already believe in your brand.

When buyers see that proof, they’re more likely to choose you over competitors.

Why is social proof important?

Social proof matters because people trust people more than they trust brands.

When customers see others posting good things about a product or recommending a service, it reassures them they’re making the right choice.

The numbers back it up:

• 97% of consumers read online reviews when browsing for local businesses.
• 90% of software buyers are influenced by some type of social proof during the consideration stage.

In short: social proof helps your business build credibility and boost sales.

9 marketing ideas for social proof

The value of social proof is clear. But how do brands make the most of it?

Consider this: Gen Z now ranks social media as their number one source of information like product reviews and restaurant recommendations.

That makes social media one of the best places to put your social proof front and center. It’s where your audience is already looking. And it’s where trust gets built in real time.

Here are nine ways brands are using social proof for marketing—on social media and beyond.

Case studies

One great way to showcase satisfied customers is by writing a case study about their experience with your business. A strong case study highlights:

• The problem your customer faced
• How you helped them solve it
• The results they achieved

Case studies help potential buyers picture themselves in the story. They build trust faster than a pitch because you’re providing evidence that your product or service actually works.

You can share case studies as PDFs, publish them on your blog or repurpose them into social media posts or short videos. For example, our team at Sprout Social recently turned a case study into a LinkedIn carousel, linking to the full story in the caption.

Source

At Sprout, we also have an entire page dedicated to customer stories where we share both testimonials and case studies. Creating a page like this that’s visible in your main site navigation is a great way to showcase social proof.

Testimonials and reviews

Your business might receive testimonials and reviews online, but have you ever thought about sharing those on social media?

Reviews are the quintessential example of social proof. Sharing them lets your audience know what others think about your business—in their own words.

Yellowbird puts a funny twist on sharing customer reviews on Instagram.

Sharing good reviews draws potential customers through the door. And once you master how to ask for reviews, you’ll have plenty of posts in your arsenal.

Using Sprout for review management streamlines your engagement and improves your online presence. When you respond to reviews and testimonials, you show that you care about your customers’ experiences.

Sprout has integrations with Google My Business, Trip Advisor, Facebook and Glassdoor and all customer reviews are aggregated into a single inbox.

User-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is any content your customers create about your brand, like photos of wearing your product or unboxing videos. It’s one of the strongest, most authentic forms of social proof you can share—because it comes from real people, not your brand.

Instagram is the perfect channel for this, thanks to its diverse, visual content types. Plus, the platform’s audience expects to see branded content.

Here’s Chewy sharing a photo of their customer’s pets.

Repost customer content (with permission), tag the original creator and show your audience what your product looks like in real life. You can also use UGC on other platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest or even your website and emails.

To encourage more submissions, run campaigns or giveaways. You can also create a branded hashtag, include it in your bio and invite users to post for a chance to be featured.

Influencer marketing

Similar to user-generated content is influencer marketing. This tactic involves compensating influencers for showing off your brand in their photos.

Here’s an example of lifestyle blogger Hadeel Elmadhoon collaborating with L’Occitane in an influencer marketing campaign.

People follow influencers because they like seeing what kinds of products and services these content creators wear, use and love. That’s why influencer marketing is a great example of social proof and can help expose your brand to a wider audience.

Awards and accolades

Has your business won awards or been ranked on top lists in your industry? Show that stuff off! It’s a great way to let people know that your business is known for its excellence.

You can display awards and badges on your website or share your achievements on social media. Here’s how we do it at Sprout.

Logos of notable clients

If you’ve worked with well-known clients, don’t keep it quiet.

Display their logos on your site, weave them into social posts or feature them in decks. It’s one of the easiest ways to build trust: showing potential clients that big names trust your brand.

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples of this in action. The first is from the homepage of Envato’s website.

Their clients are popular names, which makes this a great form of social proof.

But logos don’t have to stay on your website. Rollstack showcases their best clients on their LinkedIn header. Anyone who visits their page catches a glimpse of who they work with.

This is an excellent approach for B2B brands looking to attract other companies in their industry. It sets expectations and builds confidence in the quality of your work.

Customer base and followers

One of the easiest ways to build trust is to show how many people already trust you.

Share the number of customers you’ve served, products you’ve sold and even issues you’ve solved—it proves you’ve got experience and results to back you up.

Here’s how Salesforce shares its numbers as milestones worth celebrating.

Don’t forget your social presence. A large, engaged following is social proof in itself. It shows people want to be part of your community and that your brand is relevant.

Partnerships and integrations

The brands you partner with say a lot about your credibility. If a respected brand is willing to work with you, customers assume you’re reliable too.

Beauty brands do this all the time. Bath & Body Works partnered up with Disney to co-create a new collection, promoting the collab on Instagram.

For SaaS businesses, integrations act as another form of social proof. Here’s an example of Webflow announcing their integration with Adobe on LinkedIn.

Knowing that your software is compatible with another software that a potential customer uses is a great selling point, but it also makes your business seem more robust and trusted.

Social media mentions

One of the simplest ways to showcase social proof is to highlight when people mention your brand on social media. A shoutout, a tag or even a casual mention shows that customers are talking about your brand online.

Take Notion, for example. When a customer praised the platform’s AI features on X, Notion simply reposted it. That kind of genuine proof builds trust without feeling promotional.

To catch these moments, pay attention to tags and use social listening tools to track brand mentions and keywords. Tools like Sprout Social Listening make it easy to spot conversations about your brand or industry, so you can join in and share the love.

How to measure social proof

Social proof only works if you know the impact it’s making. This means you need to track the signals that show how much people trust and validate your brand.

When you measure social proof, you turn it into a growth tool. You can spark more engagement by celebrating milestones, use proof to influence buying decisions and learn how your audience makes choices in the first place.

Here are some key social proof metrics to track:

• Follower growth and engagement rates. Track new followers, likes, shares and comments. These numbers show how your community perceives and interacts with your brand.
• Review volume and ratings. Pay attention to how many reviews you’re collecting and your average star rating across platforms. More reviews mean stronger credibility.
• Testimonials and mentions. Count how often your brand is mentioned, tagged or quoted on social media. Each mention is a signal of trust.
• User-generated content (UGC). Track how much content your customers are creating about your brand, including photos, videos and posts that amplify your reach.
• Referral traffic. Use analytics to see how much traffic is coming from review sites, influencer posts or third-party mentions.
• Conversion lift from proof. Compare performance on campaigns with social proof elements (like testimonials or logos) vs. those without to measure impact on sales.

To measure all this, you’ll need the right tools. Google Analytics helps you see how reviews or influencer content drive traffic and conversions.

Similarly, native social media analytics and ad platforms give you engagement data that shows how audiences respond to proof-driven campaigns.

For a deeper look, tools like Sprout Social pull everything together. Monitor brand mentions, track sentiment and measure how social proof shapes conversations across platforms. We’ll cover this in more detail below.

How to work with brand advocates and creators to amplify social proof

Social proof is powerful on its own, but it becomes unstoppable when real people help spread it. Customers who rave about you, advocates who consistently cheer you on and creators who share their influence—all of them give your brand credibility that no ad can buy.

The challenge is finding those voices, sharing their content and managing it all in a scalable way. Here’s how to find and amplify social proof with Sprout Social.

Discover and share customer content

UGC is some of the most authentic proof you can share. A customer’s photo, a shoutout in a comment or even a casual mention shows your product in action. The problem is, this content is scattered across networks and it’s easy to miss.

Sprout’s Smart Inbox solves that. It pulls every tag, DM, comment and mention into a single feed, so you always see when people are talking about you.

You can tag messages as potential UGC, assign them to teammates and quickly ask for permission to reshare. Once you have approval, you can drop those posts into Sprout’s Asset Library so they’re ready to repurpose into campaigns.

Identify and nurture brand advocates

Every brand has natural advocates: the people who recommend you without being asked. The key is to find them and strengthen the relationship.

Sprout’s Listening tools help you track mentions of your brand, industry topics or even competitor names to see who’s already shaping the conversation.

Listening also surfaces influencers and thought leaders by their impact, so you can spot high-value advocates you might have overlooked. Once identified, you can thank them, reshare their content or invite them into a more formal advocacy program.

Run influencer marketing campaigns

Sometimes you need to go beyond organic advocacy and build structured partnerships with creators to stay competitive. Working with influencers adds scale to your social proof.

With Sprout’s Influencer Marketing platform (formerly Tagger), you can discover creators who align with your brand, evaluate their audience fit and manage entire campaigns in one place.

From briefing to deliverables to performance tracking, the platform keeps everything organized. When the right creators vouch for you, it builds stronger, long-term credibility.

The bottom line: Social proof works best when you amplify it through the voices of your customers, advocates and creators. Sprout Social gives you the tools to discover those voices, build partnerships and scale their impact without the chaos.

Ready to see how it all works together? Schedule a demo.

Use social proof to boost your marketing strategy

Social proof builds trust, drives engagement and helps customers choose you over the competition. From reviews to UGC to influencer partnerships, every proof point is a chance to strengthen your brand.

Sign up for a free 30-day trial of Sprout Social and see how easy it is to manage and amplify social proof across every channel.

The post Social proof: How to use psychology in digital marketing appeared first on Sprout Social.

When I first started working in social media and managing social teams, the networks hadn’t even been monetized yet. My first teams were made up of writers—former journalists, PR professionals and bloggers.

Then came paid social, followed by video content and later creators. Plus, many more rollouts, algorithm evolutions and network shakeups along the way. With each new development, the expectations placed on social marketers and teams grew. Today’s teams handle video production, content creation, strategy, influencer partnerships, data analysis and community engagement—not to mention keeping up with the pace of social.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all social media team structure, social media org charts should reflect the growing demands of the work, and the unique needs of your business and audience. It’s time to do away with Swiss Army knife-style roles, where one social marketer is doing the work of five. We need to advocate for team structures that offer clear paths for career progression and work-life balance, and prioritize the work that correlates most with business growth.

In this guide, I explain how we’ve built our team at Sprout, and how you can design and resource a social media department that sets everyone—leaders and individual contributors—up for success.

Social media marketing team structures to consider

The dynamic nature of social can actually put social marketers at a professional advantage if leaders give them the space to grow. With the right structure, teams can refine and grow their skills quickly, resulting in career-making opportunities.

Proactively experimenting with new types of social media department structures can also shift the trajectory of a brand—helping win a larger audience, customer loyalty and sustainable growth.

1. Functional

At Sprout, our social team uses a functional model. We structure our roles around specific tasks and responsibilities, like influencer partnerships or social media intelligence. Even our generalists have focus areas, including content creation, video production and social search (SOSEO).

Our team also partners closely with the Brand Creative Team on asset development, and teams across Sprout—including PR, Community, Content, Customer Insights, Events, Internal Comms, Performance Marketing and Product Marketing—on messaging, research and distribution.

We moved toward this structure to counter burnout and increase team longevity. Like all marketing professionals, social marketers want to have a distinct lane.

When you’re code-switching all day long—jumping between managing incoming DMs, putting together reports, coordinating with influencers and producing content—it limits your ability to think creatively, do your best work and become a true subject matter expert. It also makes it difficult to measure how your efforts are performing, and translate that data into insights for stakeholders.

Because of their specialized focuses, the team successfully scaled our influencer marketing program, increased our video output, regularly shares social intelligence company-wide, attributes our work to revenue and so much more.

I recommend a functional model to any leaders who want to foster their team’s specialized growth and career development, while driving forward specific initiatives.

2. Network

Some teams align individual employees to specific networks—like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn. This approach empowers individuals to become experts on their assigned network and take full ownership of a strategy from development to execution.

Sprout’s own social team experimented with a network-specific structure back in 2022 but ultimately decided to pivot. While it did result in some highly intentional content and a deep understanding of platform-specific audience insights, it simply wasn’t scalable for a team of our size.

This team structure gained popularity during a more stable era of social. Since then, the landscape has evolved into a much more fluid space where platform dominance is no longer a given. With new platforms emerging and consumer preferences changing rapidly, assigning team members to specific networks can result in gaps and redundancies.

Our experience revealed that a network-based social media team structure can create silos, particularly when a new network gains popularity (hello, Threads). However, it still has potential as an interim structure for new teams developing a social media marketing strategy from the ground up.

3. Audience engagement

Another common team structure focuses on audience engagement goals and patterns, which can vary based on your industry or business size. The main categories include:

• Awareness: Creating content that’s designed to boost brand visibility with new and existing audiences.
• Engagement: Creating content and engaging with inbound messages (comments, DMs, etc.) with the goal of building community and increasing brand loyalty.
• Customer Service: Managing customer service questions, requests or complaints to ensure they’re resolved in a timely manner.

Of course, these teams go beyond content creation. For instance, an awareness team might include a content creator, influencer marketing manager and performance analyst to ensure content stays relevant and valuable.

This approach calls on individuals to work across multiple networks, so robust social media management software is non-negotiable here. Consolidating workflows into a single system is the only way to prevent your team from spending too much time hopping between disparate platforms.

4. Center of excellence

In a social media center of excellence (CoE) model, each contributing department appoints a representative to participate in a council, contributing insights to shape the social strategy.

Key participants typically include representatives from PR, employer brand, HR, product and customer support. Together, they offer valuable input into a company’s social strategy, fostering collaboration across various business units.

Generally, CoE models work well for large businesses that have social stakeholders distributed throughout their org chart. If your company fits this description, exploring the CoE model might be a strategic move to align your social strategies with overarching company goals.

How to build a social media (dream) team: 5 roles to invest in

75% of marketing leaders are increasing headcount for their social teams in the next year. More than half say they want to hire for specialized roles—including social media search optimization, social customer service and support, paid social, influencer marketing, and social analytics and listening.

Finding a structure that suits your business needs may illuminate gaps in your social media department, and help narrow down where to invest. Here are some roles that should be at the top of your wishlist as you plan for team growth.

The SOSEO strategist

With social and AI completely changing the way consumers discover brands and products, traditional search has plummeted. Gen Z already turns to social networks more than search engines when looking for information, and consumers from every generation use social to discover products, per the Q2 2025 Sprout Pulse Survey.

Which explains why an SOSEO strategist is at the top of the list for so many marketing leaders.

This strategist owns your SOSEO plan, and helps your entire team craft content with social search in mind.

This role conducts audience and keyword research, and uses those insights to inform and optimize your content strategy and analyze trends.

The social customer care lead

Your social customer care lead serves as a conduit between your social media and customer service teams—an essential hire for businesses that experience a high volume of social customer service requests.

This individual is responsible for documenting social customer care processes, creating escalation management strategies, and managing integrations between your social media and case management tools. They also provide much-needed support for customer service agents as they learn how to offer more brand-centric support across several social media channels.

Today, only 8% of social marketers believe themselves to be leaders in social customer care. Businesses that make this critical hire will secure a competitive advantage in their customer experience.

The paid media specialist

Organic and paid social strategies are like two halves of a whole, which is why they should complement and reinforce each other.

Whether you aim to boost brand awareness, welcome new followers or gather new leads, combining both efforts will deliver optimal results. It is helpful, however, to split organic and paid social media team roles. Especially as 87% of leaders plan to increase paid social spend, per the Impact of Social Report.

While your other social media marketers focus on the art of organic content, a teammate that specializes in paid digital media can optimize those efforts further and deepen the business impact of social.

The influencer marketing strategist

The influencer marketing industry is expected to reach nearly $40 billion worldwide in 2025. This exponential growth has meant that what was once assumed to be a space for retail brands exclusively now has room for industries of all kinds.

A great influencer marketing strategist will handle not just influencer sourcing and relationship management, but also embedding influencer partnerships across the funnel (i.e., influencer shop pages on your site) and bringing influencer content to different channels beyond social (i.e., in-store promotions).

Building such robust relationships with influencers on behalf of a brand is inherently a high-touch process. When you consider that, alongside ongoing tasks like performance reporting and budget optimization, investing in a full-time professional for this role becomes a no-brainer.

The social intelligence analyst

Social is a powerful source of business intelligence, so having a person on your social team who is ready and able to put on their data analyst hat is critical.

A social media intelligence analyst makes sense out of the raw numbers and reports and turns data into actionable insights. They regularly report on key performance indicators to help determine if your strategy is on track and performing as planned—and when it isn’t, they have the skills to make recommendations on how to bounce back.

Perhaps most importantly, a social intelligence analyst can demonstrate the business impact of social data, measure the return on your investment and share insights about your audience company-wide.

How to make a case for expanding your social media team

Hiring is a big decision, and recruiting is often a long and expensive process. That said, the costs of waiting can outweigh the costs of taking the leap. Especially as social becomes more business-critical than ever.

Here are three ways to reiterate the value of growing your team to senior leadership and  the C-suite.

Use budget trends to your advantage

Per The 2025 Impact of Social Media Marketing Report, 80% of marketing leaders plan to reallocate funds from traditional channels (i.e., TV, display ads, PR) to social. The total budget for paid social alone is expected to reach $345 billion in 2029.

With so much investment comes high expectations. Teams will be under more pressure to close attribution gaps, tell more compelling data stories, and expand initiatives that are top-of-mind for leaders. In many cases, that means needing more people to execute the work.

Expanding your social media department is your only path toward ensuring you have resources dedicated to both strategy and execution.

Explain the opportunity cost

Teams don’t necessarily need more resources to create content. What they need is more space to focus on strategic, revenue-driving work. To do that, they require team bandwidth dedicated to develop their craft or hone their analysis and data storytelling skills.

Today, less than half (44%) of marketing leaders rate their teams as experts when it comes to proving the business value of social, per the Impact of Social Report.

Imagine how much more your team could devote to customer acquisition, customer loyalty and revenue through social if you had the resourcing.

Underscore the urgent priority of company-wide social intelligence

Evangelizing social intelligence org-wide is out of reach for most teams, even though it means leaving so many critical audience and industry insights buried.

The Impact of Social Report found that digital marketing teams are the most likely to use social data—by a long shot. Yet, marketing leaders say they want teams like customer experience and success, customer care and support, and business development to use social insights to drive their decisions, too. Leaders indicate they also want to see more competitor and audience insights, performance data contextualized with data from innovative brands, and intel into latest network strategy updates.

For that to happen, teams need the resources to build and distribute insights-driven reports that go beyond engagements and conversions.

Once we added a Social Intelligence Manager position to our team, we were able to start sharing industry and market insight reports regularly in our weekly all-company newsletter. This individual partners closely with Internal Comms (who drives the newsletter) and PR on internal industry education—highlighting how pivotal the role is when it comes to democratizing data access.

4 ways to future-proof your social media team

Maintaining your brand’s competitive edge and reaping the most rewards from social starts with investing in the professionals that help shape your brand perception across this new digital terrain. If you’re not sure what that looks like, here are four ways to future-proof your social media team.

1. Invest in your team’s ongoing development

In 2023, 42% of marketers planned to stop working in social media within the next two years, and 20% wanted to change careers within the next 12 months. This posed a genuine threat to the industry, potentially leading to a scarcity of experienced talent. Today, 79% plan to stay in the industry for three or more years to continue refining their skills, per The 2025 Sprout Social Index™.

This impressive rebound is thanks in part to leaders who are making strides in team development. Fostering opportunities for growth and career advancement is crucial for retaining social talent. Even if you can’t secure budget for immediate pay increases or promotions, you can still support your teams with opportunities for skill expansion. It’s these opportunities that pave the way for generalists to find their specialization.

Allocating budget resources for conferences (both digital and IRL), professional development resources and courses signals a commitment to long-term growth and success. Additionally, leaders can direct their teams to free communities (like Sprout Social’s Arboretum) for more regular opportunities to connect with and learn from their peers.

And as you design your team for the future, ensure you’re equipped to recruit and retain candidates by thinking of how to hire for social media teams in 2026 and beyond.

2. Identify more opportunities for cross-functional data sharing

I’ve said it before: Gold standard social media strategies shape business (not just marketing) decisions. Though achieving this level of impact becomes an uphill battle if your team is confined to a marketing bubble, isolated from potential collaborators.

Forward-thinking companies break down these silos by sharing social data pervasively throughout their organizations. This approach ensures that social insights inform decisions related to customer, product and business opportunities. If social data remains within the confines of your marketing department, you’re at risk of falling behind.

Social teams need executive sponsors to help create opportunities for sharing social intelligence across the company. This does more than just lay the groundwork for collaboration—it empowers teams to showcase the impact of social across various functions within an organization.

It’s a strategic move that secures buy-in for your team to wield their influence within a broader organizational framework.

3. Encourage experimentation

Emerging technologies are redefining what it means to work in social. In the past, attempting to conduct regular social media data analysis while managing a full content calendar and engagement duties felt daunting. Now, thanks to AI, teams can expand the impact of their work without adding more hours to the day.

AI tools help social media teams collate massive amounts of social listening data and transform it into actionable recommendations that elevate work across departments. Contrary to headlines about AI eliminating jobs, 54% of marketing teams believe AI is what will empower them to grow their social teams moving forward.

To make sure your brand isn’t left behind, it’s crucial to support your social media team in embracing the latest AI use cases.

This involves investing in tools that prioritize AI development and collaborating with business leaders to establish thoughtful AI use policies. These policies not only safeguard your business and brand but also ensure that your team remains at the forefront of the competitive landscape.

4. Advocate for stronger attribution models

According to the Impact of Social Report, over half of all marketing leaders say incompatibility between their social media management tools and the rest of their marketing tech stack is the #1 reason they aren’t able to understand social’s impact on their business. They also cite how difficult it is to set up reliable attribution models and the lack of internal knowledge about connecting social efforts to business goals.

The same report found that less than half of all marketing leaders say their teams embed social data into any form of CRM (customer relationship management) software.

Leaders, this is your cue to ensure social data integration is at the top of your analytics team’s priority list. As more budget moves to social, it will be even more important to show proof of results. At Sprout, when our CMO and I fast-tracked social reporting to the top of marketing analytics’ deliverables, we were able to quickly turn around a multi-touch attribution model that revealed a 5,800% increase in social’s pipeline impact.

Lead a social media team of tomorrow

The future of social isn’t just about keeping up with the latest trends and emerging networks—it’s about building resilient, specialized teams that  drive measurable business impact.

By prioritizing structures that support focus, growth and collaboration, leaders can empower their teams to evolve alongside the industry. Investing in the right people and roles now will not only strengthen your brand’s social presence today, but also ensure long-term success as the landscape becomes more complex.

Read next: The 2025 Impact of Social Report. Our survey of 1,200 marketing leaders from around the globe examines what social marketers can do to make sure their reporting infrastructure prioritizes the right metrics, and how social data can provide value company-wide.

The post How to build your social media team for the future of marketing appeared first on Sprout Social.

With that, you’re responsible for equipping your team with the resources to succeed. This social media management pricing guide gives you the framework to get executive buy-in, build your budget and justify your social strategy.

We’ll walk you through what is included in the cost of social media management, how the cost of agencies compares to freelancers and the average amount a business should spend.

What you need to know about social media management pricing

Social media costs depend on the size of your business and the complexity of your strategy. Understanding these factors will help you plan your social media budget effectively and align your investments with your goals.

Prices vary depending on your social sophistication

When you align your budget with your social sophistication and needs, you invest wisely and achieve measurable outcomes. Here’s some food for thought.

1. Small and medium businesses (SMBs): Social media costs are often lower for SMBs because they focus on foundational strategies. These include regular content posting, engaging with followers and running modest ad campaigns. Costs typically cover social media management tools, basic reporting and a limited ad spend.
2. Mid-sized businesses: Mid-sized companies operate at a higher level of sophistication and require more robust tools for scheduling, team collaboration and advanced analytics. AI-driven tools for content recommendations and sentiment analysis deliver deeper insights into brand health and the customer experience. While this means a higher investment in social media management pricing, it also drives a stronger ROI.
3. Enterprise businesses: Enterprise-level companies have highly sophisticated strategies that involve multiple platforms, large-scale campaigns and dedicated social customer care teams. Their costs are higher, reflecting the need for advanced tools. This includes AI-powered automation, custom integrations, advanced analytics and social listening.

Cost savings of social compared to other marketing channels

With lower entry costs, precise audience targeting and the ability to support every buyer stage, social media delivers higher ROI than traditional marketing channels. Features like AI-driven automation and real-time analytics further improve your efficiency so your budget is spent wisely while maximizing impact.

To get executive buy-in and budget, you need to justify the social cost to decision-makers. According to our 2025 Sprout Social Index™, 65% of marketing leaders say demonstrating how social media campaigns tie to business goals is crucial for securing social investment.

Another 52% say quantifying the cost savings of using social compared to other channels is equally important.

How to build an effective social media budget

Building an effective social media budget is a foundational step. Start by defining clear goals and considering your organization’s unique needs. Factor in aspects like audience size, platform priorities and your social media expertise to determine whether you need basic content management or advanced analytics and social media customer service tools. Align these needs with your overall marketing budget so resources are allocated effectively and support measurable outcomes.

Social media management costs overall

There’s no one-size-fits-all social media management pricing. Brands will spend differently depending on their goals and objectives.

While a basic social media management program can cost anywhere between $500–$5,000 per month, a comprehensive program is roughly $5,000 per month. Additional social media marketing costs related to content creation, advertising campaigns and social media management software may include:

• Content creation: $8,000 per month (Nano-influencers charge between $40 to $150 per post; micro-influencers charge anywhere from $80 to $350; while mid-tier influencer rates are around $350)
• Social advertising: $6,000 per month
• Platform management: $5,000 per month

Bringing your total to $19,000 per month.

Here’s a breakdown of how we calculated this figure.

Cost of launching on a new social channel and creating content

Although launching on a social channel is technically free, running the profile and creating a content calendar costs a brand anywhere from $500 to $10,000 per month.

The estimated social media management pricing depends on factors like talent sourcing (in-house talent vs. outsourced) and third-party tools. For example, at Sprout, our content and social management is driven by our internal team members, but we contract content creation too.

Here are the average rates for both:

• Social Media Specialist salary: $4,700 per month
• Social Media Manager freelance rate: $20–150 per hour, based on experience
• Creator compensation: $25–$500 per post or video, based on the platform and influencer type.

Cost of social media ad campaigns

To run a successful network-specific advertising campaign, you should plan to invest at least $2,500 per month in each network you’re targeting. Often the cost can be much higher based on your goals, so it’s wise to consider that.

It’s important to factor in your goals, campaign duration, audience and networks that’ll work best for your campaign, to determine your social ad campaign budget. As you integrate more platforms and run longer campaigns, expect the overall expense to increase.

Your campaign metrics will reveal ways you may need to optimize your strategy to reach your desired goals, so leave room in your ad budget for flexibility.

Costs of influencer marketing

Adding influencer spend into your strategy is critical because according to Sprout’s 2024 Influencer Marketing Report, almost half (49%) of consumers surveyed, make purchases at least once a month because of influencer posts. Interestingly, 62% of frequent buyers often share product feedback with influencers, rather than with brands directly. This means you can get better reach and conversions with influencers plus access to product and brand feedback you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Average influencer pricing varies per network but in general, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok cost $10 per 1000 posts, while Facebook and YouTube are $20 per 1000 subscribers/followers.

Platform management costs

Whether you manage multiple platforms through a social media management tool, an agency partner or both, you’ll pay around $500–$5,000 per month.

The price is influenced by the number of profiles you manage, the volume of inbound messages and mentions you receive, the size of your community and the features you use.

Continue reading to learn more about the costs of working with a social media management agency and using a social media management tool.

Social media management agency pricing

Some brands use agencies for social media services to complement their in-house social teams, while others use them to outsource all their social media management tactics. Services offered depend on the agency type, but often include:

• Platform management
• Social strategy
• Content development
• Social analytics
• Running paid social campaigns
• Engagement and community management

The scope of your social media management needs will impact the cost. Prices vary depending on your goals, the service term and the number of tasks the agency performs. Agency fees scale based on your business size and campaign complexity.

Social media management freelancer pricing

An influencer marketing budget is a separate but crucial part of your overall social media management pricing. Freelancer costs shift based on their experience level and the scope of your project. Rates can be hourly, per-project or on a monthly retainer.

Once you determine your goals and budget, you need to find freelancers who have the right skills and fit your price range. Instead of sifting through generic marketplaces, use a dedicated platform to connect with the right partners. Sprout Social Influencer Marketing helps you discover vetted creators, manage relationships and measure the ROI of your campaigns from a single, intuitive dashboard.

1. Upwork: A freelancing platform and independent talent workforce that helps you scale faster and transform your business. Upwork is a great option for larger projects that require subject-matter expertise.
2. MarketerHire: This is an online marketplace where you can search and hire social media marketing freelancers that fit your needs and budget. The platform offers marketing roles based on expertise, making it easier for brands to bridge gaps in their social media management team and meet goals more easily.
3. The Mom Project: A freelancing platform specifically designed to employ mothers and help over 650,000 talented women stay engaged in the workforce. The Mom Project’s Maternityship® program provides companies with coverage for resource gaps created by parental leave.

If your team opts to work with freelancers, we recommend starting with smaller tasks. Make sure their work aligns with your goals and expectations before partnering on large-scale, critical projects.

Social media management software pricing

Publishing, scheduling and reporting natively is cumbersome without social media management software. It’s necessary software to optimize team resources and save time, so they can focus on creative and strategic tasks to build authentic customer connections and elevate your brand.

The investment in a social media management platform varies based on its capabilities. A comprehensive platform designed for end-to-end management will require a larger investment than a simple tool built for a single task, but it will also deliver a greater return.

Here’s an overview of our pricing models.

 Standard

• $199 per seat/month | Billed annually ($249 billed monthly)
• 5 social profiles
• All-in-one social inbox
• Publish, schedule, draft and queue posts
• Social content calendar
• Review management
• Profiles, keywords and locations monitoring
• Group, profile and post-level reporting
• Paid promotion tools to boost Facebook posts
• iOS and Android mobile apps

Professional 

• $299 per seat/month | Billed annually ($399 billed monthly)
• All Standard features, plus:
• Unlimited social profiles
• Competitive reports for Instagram, Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter)
• Message tagging
• Custom workflows for multiple approvers and steps
• Scheduling for optimal send times
• Saved replies
• Digital asset and content library
• Brand-level engagement reporting
• Trend analysis for X keywords and hashtags
• Suggestions by AI Assist
• Paid social reporting for Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn

Advanced

• $399 per seat | Billed annually ($499 billed monthly)
• All Professional features, plus:
• Message Spike Alerts for increased message activity
• Get alerted when message volume is higher than usual with email and push notifications.
• Enhance by AI Assist
• Chatbots with automation tools
• Sentiment in the Smart Inbox and Reviews
• Rule builder for automated actions
• Automated link tracking
• CSAT and NPS surveys
• Scheduled report delivery
• Helpdesk and CRM integrations
• Feature visibility controls
• External approvals
• Organize tags

Enterprise

• Pricing available on request | Custom-built plan to meet your needs
• All Advanced features, plus:
• Tailored implementation and onboarding to get teams up and running quickly
• Professional consulting services
• 24/5 prioritized customer support
• Premium add-ons, including:
  • Social Listening to uncover emerging trends, brand influencers and competitive intel
  • Premium Analytics to measure success across all social channels
  • Employee Advocacy solutions to amplify your brand’s organic reach
  • Sprout Social Influencer Marketing to connect with creators and manage campaigns

Cost of other software that can help with social media management

In addition to a social media management platform, you might need other tools to supplement your social media strategy. Here are two examples of platforms that support you in tracking your customers’ journey and generating new content ideas.

1. HubSpot

HubSpot’s integrated CRM platform helps you monitor social engagement in the context of your customer relationships.

The platform gives you a detailed understanding of your customers’ social interactions and how many marketing-qualified leads you’re generating from specific platforms—which makes it easy for you to prove the return on investment (ROI) of your social campaigns.

Cost: $730/month (Professional)

2. Post Planner

Post Planner curates articles, images and custom content feeds so you always have something fresh for your followers. The platform identifies your most popular posts and has automated features to repurpose and recreate top-performing content.

Cost: $57/month (Business)

Invest in your social media success

Calculating your social media management pricing is more than a budget exercise. It’s a strategic investment in your brand’s future. The right platform doesn’t just save you time; it unlocks smarter, faster business impact. Sprout Social’s intuitive, AI-powered suite of tools gives you everything you need to centralize your workflow, prove your ROI and command your market.

Stop just managing social and start maximizing its value. See how Sprout Social delivers undeniable results by starting a free 30-day trial today.

The post Social media management pricing for businesses in 2025 appeared first on Sprout Social.

That’s where this flexible seven-week influencer marketing plan comes in. It provides a framework with clear milestones and walks you through a process that covers everything from defining your goals to measuring your campaign’s success.

While we’ve structured this influencer marketing plan template into weeks, the actual timing may vary depending on factors like influencer availability and contract negotiations. Use these milestones as a guide and adjust as needed to fit your specific circumstances.

What is an influencer marketing strategy template?

An influencer marketing strategy template guides brands through planning, executing and evaluating influencer collaborations.

It’s a roadmap that helps brands identify their goals, target audience and ideal influencers. Plus, templates offer guidance on creating engaging content, tracking performance metrics and managing relationships with influencers.

Why is a roadmap important? Our 2024 Influencer Marketing report shows 80% of consumers prefer buying from brands with long-term influencer partnerships.

Longer partnerships matter—they build trust through repeated engagement, leading to deeper audience loyalty and more sustained sales growth than one-off posts.

Week 1: Setting a foundation

These initial steps set the stage for a campaign that’s tightly aligned with your goals and primed to deliver measurable results that match your broader marketing objectives.

Identify your goals and objectives

Focusing on clear, strategic objectives yields more impactful results.

Establish both high-level goals and specific, measurable objectives that support those goals. High-level goals represent the broader outcomes you aim for, while specific objectives are the quantifiable steps that help you reach them.

This approach lets you track progress, make adjustments and ensure you’re investing in the right tactics. Examples of high-level goals include:

• Reduce customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Increase share of voice in your industry
• Get product feedback
• Build brand advocates
• Become a thought leader

While these are common, tailor your goals to your specific challenges. Start by analyzing customer feedback and pinpoint the stages where drop-off or dissatisfaction occurs. Prioritize the goals that target these weak spots.

For each high-level goal, define specific, measurable objectives. For example, if your goal is to reduce CAC, your objective would be to decrease it by 15% over the next quarter through influencer partnerships. Long sales cycle? Use influencers to explain benefits and build trust. Poor retention? Partner with creators to show advanced use cases and boost loyalty.

The most effective influencer strategies address multiple objectives and ensure your marketing efforts hit several targets at once. Start by identifying two key goals and outline the measurable objectives that’ll support them. Ensure your influencer strategy aligns with these priorities.

Define your target audience

The next step is to understand who you’re targeting. Understanding audience nuances informs the influencer tier you should target.

Knowing whether your audience prefers Instagram Stories, YouTube Shorts or TikTok videos, for example, directs you to influencers whose content will resonate.

Defining your target audience goes beyond basic demographics—explore their psychographics: their interests, values, pain points and aspirations.

Once you’ve defined your audience, align them with the right influencer tier:

• Mega-influencers (1 M+)
• Macro-influencers (100K-1M)
• Micro-influencers (10K-100K)
• Nano-influencers (<10K)

Consider the trade-offs between reach and relevance. Mega and macro-influencers offer wide exposure but may lack niche credibility. Micro and nano-influencers boast higher engagement rates and authenticity within specific communities.

For example, a fitness app targeting niche health enthusiasts might partner with micro-influencers to create authentic reviews and tutorial videos, while a national shoe retailer could use macro-influencers for campaigns targeting broader fashion fans.

Create a shortlist of potential collaborators

Building a strong shortlist of influencers requires a multi-pronged approach.

Start with a hashtag search on platforms like Instagram. For example, a search for #HealthyFood on Instagram brings up nutrition experts, food bloggers and wellness advocates already creating content that aligns with your brand.

Don’t shy away from competitive research either. Examine who your rivals collaborate with to understand the landscape and how you can differentiate.

Tools designed for influencer discovery, like Sprout Social Influencer Marketing, have competitive search capabilities and help you find influencers based on key factors that matter to your brand and audience–like topical alignment and engagement.

Sprout Social Influencer Marketing also helps you:

• Vet influencers to confirm brand and topical alignment with a customizable Brand Fit Score.
• Feel confident the creators and influencers you choose align with your brand values and won’t cause reputational damage with Brand Safety Reports.
• Scale influencer and creator networks with Creator Lists–AI-powered suggestions that help you compile a list of similar influencers.
• See influencer data broken out by social network, so you can find partners who align to your audience’s network preferences.

Other methods to expand your search without a dedicated influencer marketing tool:

• Use social listening tools to identify emerging voices in your niche
• Employ search engines with specific queries like “top [your industry] bloggers”
• Find out where thought leaders gather on industry-specific platforms
• Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator for B2B influencer discovery

The goal isn’t just to find influencers, but to identify those whose values and audience align with your brand’s vision and goals.

Week 2: Developing your strategy

Week two is about making key decisions to shape your influencer marketing plan and aligning them with overall marketing goals.

Determine your budget

Match your budget to platforms where your audience spends time to ensure smart spending before you partner with influencers. Budget clarity also attracts expert influencers while enabling them to plan content and manage expectations. The 2024 Influencer Marketing Report reveals that 59% of influencers consider a clear budget and payment structure the most important criteria when choosing a brand partner.

Consider factors like audience demographics and engagement levels on each platform. Here’s a breakdown of average influencer pricing across key platforms by per post and followers:

Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok cost about $10 per post per 1,000 followers, while Facebook and YouTube are more expensive at about $20 per 1,000 followers. X (formerly Twitter) is the cheapest on average at $2 per post per 1,000 followers.

If your audience spends most of their time on YouTube, allocate a larger budget for video content production, which is often more expensive than static posts on Instagram.

Once you know where your audience is most active, begin listing potential costs and prioritizing high-engagement platforms to maximize your return on investment (ROI).

Consider these often-overlooked budget factors:

• Content ownership rights: Extended usage significantly impacts costs
• Exclusivity clauses: Preventing influencers from working with competitors comes at a premium
• Creative control: More brand oversight typically means higher fees
• Campaign timeline: Expedited deadlines often incur premium rates
• Campaign length: Long-term partnerships may offer better value
• Number of channels: Cross-platform campaigns increase costs but expand reach
• Influencer tier: Mega-influencers command higher fees than nano-influencers
• Content type: Video content typically costs more than static posts
• Boosting influencer content: A critical component to an integrated influencer campaign, so your brand can scale awareness and drive down-funnel impact.

While brands should consider all the above factors, boosting content and using paid ads is a critical and strategic step in driving influencer campaign success. If your brand needs people to take action right away–like via sign ups or subscriptions–or if you’re trying to reach a very specific group of customers with targeted segmentation, paid advertising should be factored into your campaign plan.

No matter what campaign priorities you choose, all these factors directly influence your overall costs and ROI. By addressing them early, you ensure your budget aligns with campaign goals and prevents potential obstacles.

Choose influencers based on campaign-fit

Successful partnerships today prioritize authenticity, engagement and alignment with brand values. Prioritize those who embody your brand’s ethos, show creative synergy and have the storytelling ability to weave your message into their content ecosystem.

Consider these factors to find the right influencers:

• Content fit: Does their style match your brand’s look and voice? Look for creators who naturally incorporate your message without disrupting their established style.
• Audience overlap: Focus on psychographic data. An influencer with 70% audience alignment is far more valuable than one with 100% reach but only 30% relevance.
• Partnership history: Choose influencers who’ve improved past brand campaigns with creative ideas.
• Crisis resilience: In an era of cancel culture, pick influencers who can handle negative feedback well and stay true to themselves.

The perfect influencer on paper may not always translate to real-world success. Start with micro-tests or small-scale campaigns to evaluate performance before scaling up. An iterative approach allows you to refine your selection criteria based on actual performance data.

Align on content rights and permissions

Budget factors and choosing influencers who fit your brand go hand-in-hand with content rights and permissions. As we mentioned earlier, certain rights and permissions will come at a higher cost to your brand. And different influencers will have different requirements around how your brand can–and can’t–use their content.

For many direct to consumer brands, especially those with a niche audience or who need specific geo-targeting capabilities, paid ads are table stakes for running a successful influencer campaign. To activate paid influencer ads, you’ll need to work with your brand’s partner influencer to agree on terms upfront.

Talk with the influencer or creator you’re partnering with to make sure you can boost campaign content. Align on permissions and content rights early, so everyone stays on the same page as you build out your content plan, and everyone knows what to expect when you get to the approval process workflow.

Weeks 3–4: Planning and content development

In weeks three and four, you’ll move from big-picture planning to nailing down the specifics. Finalize timelines, solidify partnerships and co-create content that reflects both your brand voice and the influencer’s unique style.

Create a campaign brief

A campaign brief provides clarity and direction for everyone involved. It aligns expectations and ensures that your internal team and the influencer work towards the same objectives.

To make this step easier, we’ve created an influencer marketing brief template. It covers the essential elements and you can customize it to fit your campaign needs. Download our template to simplify your campaign management and get everyone on the same page from the start.

Make initial outreach

Initial outreach is a crucial step in establishing a relationship with potential influencer partners. It shapes their first impression of your brand and sets expectations for the partnership.

Engage with their content by liking, commenting or sharing to show genuine interest and build rapport. Research their past collaborations and content style to tailor your approach, showing that you’ve done your homework and that you value thoughtful partnerships. Tailoring your approach increases your chances of securing a positive response.

Use influencer outreach email templates or templates for DMs to streamline outbound messages without sacrificing personalization. Scale outreach while creating a thoughtful and customized message.

When discussing compensation, approach influencer rate negotiations skillfully. Offer context about your budget while emphasizing the long-term value of the collaboration.

Aim for a fair partnership that respects their work and matches industry standards. A respectful approach fosters trust and opens doors to a sustainable, mutually beneficial long-term relationship.

Coordinate content creation

Influencers know their audience well. And 65% even want early involvement in creative and product discussions since they’re aware of their audience’s interests, preferences and pain points.

Early collaboration allows them to contribute strategic insights from their deep understanding of internet culture and audience behavior, helping you build campaigns that align naturally with their unique community.

Outline your key messages, brand values and goals—then step back and let influencers, who excel at content creation, transform the brief into engaging content. Giving them the freedom to interpret your brief will more likely result in content that resonates with their audience and drives better engagement. Protect your brand while embracing influencers’ creative expertise by implementing content reviews and production meetings or kickoffs.

Get appropriate permissions

While you’ll align on terms for permissions and content rights upfront during your outreach and campaign briefing process, you still need to formally request permission via social network approval workflows in order to boost posts or run ads on your own brand account. Major social networks, like Meta, have workflows to request these types of permissions for ads and boosted content.

But with Sprout Social Influencer Marketing, the process is even simpler for Meta networks like Facebook and Instagram. Sprout’s Meta Partnership Ads integration allows you to manage permissions and additional requests for content rights within the Influencer Marketing platform itself, enabling brands to extend the life and impact of creator content. You can reach out to your partner influencer and request additional permissions to boost a Facebook or an Instagram post, and see status updates on those permissions, without having to bounce between apps.

This integration also allows brands to turn influencer content into relevant campaign opportunities–giving them a fast way to reach out and request permission to share content on their brand accounts.

Week 5: Launching your first campaign

Focus on final checks and launching the campaign. As you prepare for launch, timing can vary based on your content calendar, influencer schedules and content approval processes. Use this week as a guideline and adjust as needed to ensure all elements are in place before going live.

Provide final approvals

Now’s the time for a final check before your campaign goes live. Review your planned post schedule to ensure each post aligns with your campaign goals. Double-check your contracts to confirm all parties are clear on their roles and responsibilities.

Don’t forget the technical details. Make sure all links work, tracking codes are in place and landing pages are ready to welcome potential customers.

Confirm all stakeholders—from legal to product teams—have approved the plan. Confirming stakeholder approval ensures compliance and prevents issues that could derail the campaign.

Finally, brief your customer service team so they’re ready to address any questions, concerns or feedback directly related to the campaign.

Be ready to pivot if needed. The social media landscape shifts quickly, whether it’s due to algorithm changes or trending topics. Adaptability is ‌often the key to campaign success.

Launch your campaign

Prepare your social media channels: update profiles, pin relevant posts and set up campaign hashtags and landing pages. Coordinate with your influencers to confirm their posting schedules align with your launch timeline. Launching all posts at once creates excitement on all platforms. As the campaign goes live, stay in regular contact with your influencer partners. Be available to address any last-minute questions or provide support if needed.

Boost content that’s resonating with your audience

Once your campaign’s live and you understand what’s resonating, boost successful content with additional paid spend to drive home your intended outcomes. Whether you want to increase audience engagement, drive awareness or create lower-funnel outcomes, supplementing your organic influencer efforts with paid campaign support can further your impact.

And with Meta Partnership Ads for Facebook and Instagram, you can amplify the value of influencer programs all from Sprout’s Influencer Marketing platform.

Engage with influencer content

Engage directly with influencer content to amplify your campaign’s reach and build authentic connections. Jump into the discussions happening on your influencers’ posts by answering questions, acknowledging fan shout-outs and highlighting campaign messages. Respond to social media comments, share user-generated content and spark dialogue around your brand. When responding to comments, focus on thoughtful replies that address specific points or questions.

Monitor any potential issues. If an issue or PR crisis arises, follow social channels closely and prepare a templated response that your team can adapt to specific issues. Respond promptly and with empathetic communication, offering both public reassurances and direct customer support.

Swift, professional problem-solving turns negative situations into opportunities to show your brand’s commitment. Fostering deeper brand loyalty drives retention, advocacy and long-term relationships with your audience.

Weeks 6–7: Reporting on your efforts

In the final weeks, measure impact and extract insights to lay groundwork for future strategies.

Monitor results using an influencer marketing tool

Tracking your campaign’s performance shows how it influences your audience and contributes to business goals.

Some key influencer marketing metrics to monitor include:

• Reach
• Engagement rates
• Conversions
• ROI
• Audience growth
• Sentiment analysis
• Content performance across platforms
• CPC (or CPA) for paid social

Simplify campaign tracking and performance analysis with an influencer marketing tool like Sprout’s Influencer Marketing, where you can track organic and paid efforts under one roof. Influencer Marketing offers real-time dashboards and in-depth analytics, tracking key performance indicators (KPIs), demographics and predicting trends. Streamlined monitoring saves time and helps refine future collaborations by revealing top-performing influencers and content styles.

Share learnings with your team

Sharing campaign insights is pivotal for organizational growth and strategy refinement.

Distill engagement trends, conversion rates and influencer performance into actionable intelligence. For example:

• Find out how micro, macro and nano-influencers sway audience engagement and whether video, image or text-based content drives the most impact.
• Identify performance discrepancies to refine forecasting and planning.
• Evaluate influencer selection criteria against outcomes and adjust priorities as needed.
• Assess how influencer campaigns interact with your broader marketing efforts and look for synergies and conflicts.

Looking deeper into an influencer’s audience engagement gives you insight into the most effective strategies.

Launch an influencer marketing plan that amplifies engagement

Your brand and your influencer campaigns need to go together like bread and butter. Done right, influencer marketing can significantly boost your brand’s visibility and engagement.

As you execute your strategy, stay flexible. The most successful brands are those that pivot based on campaign performance and emerging trends.

If you’re ready to elevate your influencer marketing, check out our comprehensive influencer marketing toolkit, featuring expert insights, a masterclass and ready-to-use templates to streamline your campaigns.

The post 7-week influencer marketing strategy template appeared first on Sprout Social.

The post A Social Media Scorecard Template to Keep Your C-Suite Informed appeared first on Sprout Social.

The good news is, you’re not alone. Even the most seasoned social media marketers grapple with translating the impact of social into an ROI language that resonates across an organization.

At Sprout, we’re making it our mission to help you bridge that gap. Building on the foundational insights shared in our organic social media ROI toolkit, we’re diving into tactical strategies for measuring the value of your social media efforts.

We’re rolling back the curtain on our own reporting strategy, to show you how to use Sprout’s proprietary owned and earned media frameworks to quantify the often under-recognized power of your organic social media strategy—starting with the power of Owned Media Value.

Types of owned media channels

Owned media encompasses any digital property or channel that your brand has direct control over. These channels serve as platforms to publish content, engage with your audience and build your brand presence.

While this article focuses primarily on the value derived from your social media and influencer content, it’s helpful to understand the broader landscape. Here are some key types of owned media:

Website and blog

Your website is the central hub of your online presence. It’s where customers can learn about your products or services, access resources and potentially make purchases. A blog, often integrated within your website, allows you to publish long-form content, establish thought leadership and attract organic traffic through search engines.

While you can directly measure website traffic and conversions, understanding the value of social media in driving traffic to your website is a component of social Owned Media Value.

Social media and influencer content

Your brand’s profiles on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, TikTok and others are crucial owned media channels.

These platforms allow for direct engagement with your audience through shared updates, community building and content distribution. The reach, engagement and traffic generated organically on these channels are what we quantify as social Owned Media Value.

Email marketing

Email lists are valuable owned assets for direct communication with your audience. Newsletters, promotional emails and customer updates can nurture leads, drive conversions and build loyalty.

Despite their distinct nature, email and social media are more powerful when integrated. Timely social trends can inspire more relevant and engaging email content, while strategic social promotions can effectively drive valuable email list growth. This cross-channel approach maximizes the impact of your owned media efforts.

Mobile apps

For some businesses, a mobile app serves as a key owned media channel for direct engagement with their customers, providing exclusive content or services. Social media is often used to drive app downloads and engagement, highlighting the interconnectedness of owned media efforts.

How Sprout’s social team measures and uses Owned Media Value

We know it’s critical for social media teams to demonstrate their impact. That’s why we’ve been working hard to develop a framework that helps social teams tell a stronger ROI story.

Owned media value plays a major role in our approach. Our methodology centers on a metric you’re probably familiar with: paid social Cost Per Mille (CPM), AKA the cost an advertiser pays for one thousand impressions. We work in close collaboration with our paid team, who provides us with up-to-date averages on our paid social CPM. This allows us to calculate Owned Media Value using the following equation:

Owned Media Value = (Organic Impressions within a given period / 1000) * Average Paid Social CPM

Want to understand and quantify your team’s Owned Media Value? Our free ROI calculator will help you instantly see the potential value your organic social efforts are generating. 

Calculate my social ROI

At Sprout, we elevate our Owned Media Value during quarterly business reports using our social media scorecard template. Framing organic performance in media value terms helps us speak the same language as our finance partners, who are already familiar with CPM-based models. By assigning a tangible dollar amount to the impact of organic social, we’re able to reinforce our strategic contribution and make our ROI narrative clearer and more compelling to executive stakeholders.

“[Owned Media Value] helps us tell a larger story about the power of our in house content creation, and the value of the awareness driven by our influencer program. Including OMV in quarterly business reports gives our leadership team a more concrete understanding of how organic social contributes to brand awareness without needing additional budget.”

– Rachael Goulet, Director, Social Media, Sprout Social

Complementary metrics that will strengthen your ROI story

While Owned Media Value provides a solid perspective on the awareness generated by organic social efforts, it’s not the only way to quantify the impact of your social content.

To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the value generated by our organic social content, Sprout Social tracks several key metrics. Here are the three we highlight for C-suite leadership on a quarterly basis.

Earned Media Value

Earned Media Value typically describes the value of third-party mentions and shares across social media. However, when we discuss it during quarterly business reports, we’re specifically referring to the impact and reach generated by our employee advocacy program, which we manage using Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social.

The value of employee-generated content is a game changer when it comes to extending our brand reach and driving engagement. With Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social, we can put a dollar amount to that awareness. In fact, our employee advocacy efforts drove $450,000 in earned media for us in 2024—a significant figure that directly strengthens our overall ROI story.

Influencer Cost Per Lead and Influencer Cost Per Action

While both Influencer Cost Per Lead (CPL) and Influencer Cost Per Action (CPA) are crucial for showing the ROI of your influencer collaborations, the core difference boils down to what you’re trying to achieve.

At Sprout Social, our social team leans heavily on Influencer CPL to assign a tangible dollar value to those crucial early-funnel actions driven by our influencer marketing program. By clearly demonstrating the cost to acquire a qualified lead through these partnerships, we can effectively communicate the value they bring to our greater marketing strategy.

Now, while lead generation is our primary focus with influencers, we know that for many of you, Influencer CPA might be an even more compelling metric to highlight.

CPA measures the cost associated with those key actions further down the funnel, like a direct purchase, a free trial sign-up or even a specific product demo request. If your business model allows for robust tracking of these later-stage conversions, elevating CPA can be a powerful way to showcase the ROI of influencer content to your executive team.

Measuring ROI from social media conversion metrics

To tell a complete ROI story, it’s crucial to track both media valuation metrics and key conversion metrics, which vary depending on your business type and goals.

Here’s a breakdown of conversion metrics that typically hold significant weight for B2B and B2C businesses in demonstrating direct impact on business objectives:

Tell a better social media ROI story

Social media ROI isn’t just a number. It’s the language we use to earn trust, influence strategy, and prove our team’s worth across the business. That’s why measurement is a pillar of our approach—and we want to help you make it one of yours, too.

To help you take the first step in telling a compelling ROI story to senior leadership, we’ve created a social media ROI toolkit, complete with a social media scorecard template. This resource gives you a framework for tracking and presenting the key metrics discussed in this article, so you can move beyond surface-level reporting and highlight the real business impact of your social strategy.

Download the ROI toolkit

The post How Sprout’s social team measures Owned Media Value (and other ROI metrics that matter) appeared first on Sprout Social.