Reporting Updates January 2020

A series of Sprout Social reports were updated and improved to increase accuracy and consistency across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram metrics. Sprout rolled out these updates in a phased manner.  Note that these updates didn't affect Sprout's Paid Social Reports.

The following reports were impacted:

• Post Performance 
• Twitter Profiles
• Facebook Pages
• Instagram Business Profiles
• Profile Performance Report
• Tag Report

Sprout’s Report Builder was improved with Twitter widgets from the new Twitter Profiles Report and updated metrics used in the Facebook Pages and Instagram Profiles reports.

Note: Report Builder is a feature of Sprout’s Premium Analytics add-on.

All of the metric updates applied retroactively, replacing the old metric values with new values. This ensures consistency across our reporting, and gives you better benchmarks to compare your performance over time.

Twitter Updates

Twitter Profiles Report

The Twitter Profiles Report was redesigned with a new tabbed view at the top that includes Overview, Demographics and Profiles tabs. These three tabs include the following sections:

• Overview
  • Twitter Performance Summary
  • Twitter Audience Growth
  • Twitter Publishing Behavior
  • Twitter Top Posts
  • Twitter Impressions
  • Twitter Engagement
• Demographics
  • Twitter Audience Demographics
• Profiles
  • Twitter Profiles table

In order to give a more accurate and complete view of Twitter activity, profile-level metrics include activity from the following posts you published:

• Sent Tweets
• Sent Retweets with Comments
• Sent @Replies

Published posts data were updated and tied to the same numbers shown in the Post Performance Report.

Note: Published post times in the Twitter Profiles Report are always shown in UTC, while data in the Post Performance Report is shown in the time zone you choose in Settings.

The Twitter Engagement breakdown includes all engagement metrics. This update resolves a previous issue where the sum of the underlying values didn't add up to the total. The following metrics are included:

• Engagements
  • Likes
  • @Replies
  • Retweets
  • Post Link Clicks
  • Other Post Clicks
  • Other Engagements
• Engagement Rate (per Impression)

The Export CSV functionality was updated in this report. The following metrics are now included:

• Date
• Twitter Profile
• Followers
• Net Follower Growth
• Following
• Net Following Growth
• Posts Sent
• Impressions
• Video Views - new
• Engagements
• Likes
• @Replies - new
• Retweets
• Post Link Clicks
• Other Post Clicks - new
• Other Engagements - new
• Engagement Rate (per Impression)

Post Performance Report Twitter Updates

There are several Twitter related updates in the Post Performance Report.

Users can sort by any of the included metrics for Twitter by clicking the header of any column in the report.

Additional Twitter changes to the Post Performance Report include the following:

• Responses are removed in favor of Engagements. Responses were a total @Replies and Retweets, and essentially an incomplete engagement calculation. Total Engagements is the industry standard and the metric Sprout focuses on.
• Link Click data no longer reflects bit.ly clicks or links shortened with Sprout's link shortener. Clicks metrics are sourced from Twitter directly to give a better user experience that delivers parity between native data and what is displayed in Sprout. Updated click metrics include the following:
  • Post Link Clicks
  • Other Post Clicks: Media Clicks, Hashtag Clicks, Detail Expand Clicks, and User Profile Clicks

The Export CSV functionality has also been updated in the Twitter section of this report, including the following:

• Date
• Post Type
• Name
• Sent By
• Link
• Post
• Impressions
• Potential Reach
• Engagement Rate (per Impression) - new
• Engagements - new
• Likes
• Retweets
• @Replies
• Post Link Clicks - new
• Other Post Clicks - new
• Video Views- new
• Tags

Facebook Engagement Updates

Facebook engagement metrics have been refreshed. These updates impact the Facebook Pages Report, Profile Performance Report and the Facebook section of the Post Performance Report.

Post Link Clicks and Other Post Clicks have been added to provide a more detailed Clicks breakdown.

Profile Actions have been removed from calculating engagements at the profile-level. Profile Actions can include a person clicking the phone number, website URL or action button on your Facebook Page. This update presents a consistent and more actionable Engagement breakdown between post and profile-level reporting.

The image below, from the Facebook Pages Report, displays the updated Engagement breakdown.

Instagram Engagement Updates

Instagram engagement metrics have been refreshed. These updates impact the Instagram Business Profiles Report and the Instagram section of the Profile Performance Report.

Likes and Comments, as well as their contribution to Engagements and Engagement Rate, now represent organic activity only. Previously these metrics included organic and paid activity.

Note: Instagram Paid engagement activity is still available in Sprout’s Paid Reporting with the connection of the associated Ad Account.

Profile Actions have been removed, from the Instagram Profiles Report, when calculating engagements. This update ensures consistency between post and profile-level Engagement reporting.

Note: The Instagram reporting updates do not affect the Instagram Personal Profiles report.