Sprout Social Propels Brands into a New Era of Influence with AI-Powered Innovations to its Influencer Marketing Platform

Rhea-AI Summary

Sprout Social (Nasdaq: SPT) has unveiled a revamped influencer marketing platform with AI-powered innovations. The platform now features natural language discovery and enhanced data analysis capabilities, allowing marketers to identify creators through topic-led search.

Key updates include:

• AI-Powered Natural Language Creator Search for faster influencer discovery
• AI-Powered Brand Fit Score to assess creator-brand alignment
• AI-Powered Creator Suggestions in Lists for automated influencer sourcing
• Customizable Brand Safety Reporting to ensure creator alignment with brand values

The launch addresses the growing importance of influencer marketing, with nearly half of consumers making purchases based on influencer posts. The platform aims to help brands create more authentic partnerships and drive revenue through social media channels.

Positive

• Launch of AI-powered platform features to streamline influencer marketing operations
• Integration of automated creator suggestions to reduce discovery time
• Implementation of Brand Fit Score for data-driven partnership decisions
• Enhanced brand safety features for better risk management

Negative

• None.

Insights

Technology Product Analyst

Sprout Social's overhaul of its influencer marketing platform represents a strategic AI integration that aligns with the evolving social discovery paradigm. The company is pivoting from traditional influencer discovery methods to a topic-centric approach that mirrors how modern social algorithms actually serve content to users.

The implementation of natural language discovery is technically significant as it shifts from rigid category-based search to more intuitive, conversational queries that better match how marketers conceptualize their campaigns. This represents a genuine efficiency innovation that addresses the high-friction discovery process which traditionally consumes disproportionate resources.

The Brand Fit Score introduces a proprietary metric that quantifies compatibility between creators and brands, transforming a previously subjective assessment into a data-driven decision point. This productization of expertise could potentially create switching costs for users who come to rely on these proprietary algorithms.

What's particularly notable is the customizable brand safety reporting feature, which provides retrospective content analysis across a creator's history. The testimonial from Honda validates the practical utility of temporal analysis in identifying pattern-based risk factors rather than just point-in-time violations.

While these features represent meaningful product evolution, they appear more iterative than revolutionary in the broader martech landscape where AI-powered tools are rapidly becoming standard. The announcement lacks implementation details on the underlying AI architecture or unique technological differentiation beyond feature descriptions.

Digital Marketing Strategist

Sprout's platform refresh directly addresses three critical pain points plaguing enterprise marketing teams in the influencer space: discovery inefficiency, brand alignment uncertainty, and time-intensive vetting processes.

The shift to natural language, topic-based discovery is particularly timely as social algorithms increasingly prioritize interest-based content distribution over creator-centric models. By matching their search mechanics to how networks actually surface content, Sprout has created functional alignment between their tool and the platforms they integrate with.

The brand safety reporting system addresses a significant enterprise concern that has intensified following several high-profile brand-influencer controversies. The ability to customize safety parameters acknowledges that brand safety definitions vary significantly across industries and audience demographics.

Honda's testimonial highlighting retrospective competitive mention detection is particularly revealing - it addresses the uncomfortable reality that many creators have worked with competing brands, creating potential messaging conflicts. This feature allows brands to make informed risk assessments rather than operating in the dark.

What's missing is evidence of how these features translate to improved campaign performance metrics. The announcement emphasizes operational efficiency gains but doesn't connect these improvements to enhanced ROI, conversion rates, or audience growth - the metrics marketing leaders ultimately care about. Without demonstrating these connections, this remains a workflow enhancement rather than a transformative business solution.

Overall, Sprout is keeping pace with market demands, but there's evidence this release positions them substantially ahead of competitors in this rapidly evolving space.

• AI-powered natural language discovery will allow marketers to identify creators through topic-led search, driving more authentic and impactful activations
• Reimagined, customizable brand safety solution that helps brands activate creators that align with their values and audience
• New creator vetting features drastically reduces time spent in discovery so brands can refocus on more strategic, creative tasks
  

CHICAGO, April 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sprout Social (Nasdaq: SPT), an industry-leading provider of cloud-based social media management software, today unveiled its fully reimagined influencer marketing platform. Sprout Social Influencer Marketing now features a refreshed, intuitive design along with powerful AI-driven natural language discovery and data analysis capabilities. These enhancements reflect the evolving landscape of content consumption, where personalized feeds and topical interests play a central role. With these new features, Sprout's search is topic-led to match how networks serve content, enabling brands to more quickly identify creators who can foster authentic partnerships, scale awareness, and drive greater revenue.

This launch comes at a pivotal time for marketers. As traditional marketing tactics lose effectiveness, marketing leaders are urgently seeking new ways to expand their reach and impact. Consumers now turn to social media for inspiration and brand discovery, favoring more authentic, relatable connections. This shift has given influencers unprecedented power to shape purchasing decisions, making social media a dominant full-funnel channel. In fact, nearly half of consumers now make daily, weekly, or monthly purchases because of influencer posts. As a result, influencer marketing has rapidly evolved from a trend into a top driver and multiplier of ROI.

“Influencer marketing is no longer optional—it’s essential for brands to connect with and sell to consumers. Yet, many organizations still struggle to create cohesive, data-driven campaigns and find the right creators who truly align with their brand and messaging,” said Erika Trautman, Chief Product Officer at Sprout Social. “That’s why we’ve made strategic updates to our platform that are designed not just to solve our customers’ biggest challenges, but to empower them to lead the next era of marketing and drive transformative growth across their organizations.”

This launch comes after the recent rebrand of Sprout Social Influencer Marketing and incorporates customer-driven updates that tackle their toughest challenges, from surfacing actionable data to finding the right influencers and maintaining brand safety guidelines. These key updates include:

• AI-Powered Natural Language Creator Search: Marketers can now identify creators by topic or the content they’re looking to create, making discovery faster and easier, and enabling brands to forge impactful partnerships that resonate with customers.
• AI-Powered Brand Fit Score: Proprietary metric that provides an instant assessment of how well a creator's content aligns with a brand’s social presence, helping marketers make smarter, faster decisions about creator activations while supporting relevance and authenticity.
• AI-Powered Creator Suggestions in Lists: Sprout’s proprietary AI Assist automates influencer sourcing by recommending potential partners within Creator Lists, helping users cut time spent in discovery so they can refocus their efforts on strategic priorities.
• Customizable Brand Safety Reporting: Marketers receive a brand safety report on each creator based on their organization’s defined brand safety keywords and parameters. The report analyzes creator content and flags associated topics such as alcohol, adult/NSFW, politics or competitor mentions, helping brands activate creators that align with their values and audience.

“With the new Brand Safety Reports we can quickly see if a creator mentioned our competitors five years ago. The visual of this definitely helps especially when we get into some profiles who may have a higher volume of sensitive posts. For example, did it all just happen suddenly, or was it a consistent thing for them over time? So I really like this feature a lot,” said Dakota McDaniel, Social Media Strategist at American Honda Motor Company.

Learn more about these updates and Sprout Social Influencer Marketing here.

Social Media Profiles:
www.twitter.com/SproutSocial
www.twitter.com/SproutSocialIR
www.facebook.com/SproutSocialInc
www.linkedin.com/company/sprout-social-inc-/
www.instagram.com/sproutsocial

Contact
Media:
Kaitlyn Gronek
Email: pr@sproutsocial.com 
Phone: (773) 904-9674

Investors:
Lexi Johnson
Twitter: @SproutSocialIR
Email: lexi.johnson@sproutsocial.com 
Phone: (312) 528-9166

About Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a global leader in social media management and analytics software. Sprout’s intuitive platform puts powerful social data into the hands of approximately 30,000 brands so they can deliver smarter, faster business impact. Named the #1 Best Software Product by G2’s 2024 Best Software Award, Sprout offers comprehensive publishing and engagement functionality, customer care, influencer marketing, advocacy, and AI-powered business intelligence. Sprout’s software operates across all major social media networks and digital platforms. For more information about Sprout Social (NASDAQ: SPT), visit sproutsocial.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

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FAQ

What new AI features has Sprout Social (SPT) added to its influencer marketing platform?

SPT added AI-powered natural language creator search, Brand Fit Score, Creator Suggestions in Lists, and customizable brand safety reporting features.

How does Sprout Social's (SPT) new Brand Fit Score work?

The Brand Fit Score is a proprietary AI metric that instantly assesses how well a creator's content aligns with a brand's social presence to enable smarter partnership decisions.

What brand safety features does Sprout Social (SPT) offer for influencer vetting?

SPT provides customizable brand safety reports that analyze creator content for sensitive topics like alcohol, adult content, politics, and competitor mentions based on defined parameters.

How does Sprout Social's (SPT) AI-powered creator search improve influencer discovery?

The topic-led search allows marketers to find creators based on specific content topics, making discovery faster and enabling more relevant partnership matches.