Conversations

Collaboration is key when working with your team across your social platforms and following up on reply approvals, messages and cases. Conversations is a feature in Sprout Social, equipped with its own drawer that gives you instant, easy access to new and past conversations across the Sprout platform.

In this article, you'll learn:

• Common use cases for Conversations
• Starting a Conversation
• Responding to a Conversation
• Editing and deleting Conversation comments
• Using Conversations on Sprout mobile
• Conversation FAQs

Use Cases

There are a number of ways you can use Conversations in Sprout. Let’s take a quick look at how to use them:

• Giving feedback on a Draft message: If a team member is asking for insight on some messages they’ve drafted,  you might want to start a conversation to give feedback. Start a conversation to let the author know they’ve done a great job, pull in another team member to ask questions or let the author know that they’ve missed the mark on the content of the message.
• Responding to messages requiring approval: If you already have a Message Approval workflow in place, starting a conversation about messages that require approval is a great way to leverage Conversations. Give feedback on the message, the content, or provide recommendations for the message author.
• Providing details on rejected messages: If you’ve rejected a message from an author in Sprout, it’s always a best practice to provide details on why the message didn’t make the cut. From the Rejected tab in Sprout, you can start a conversation on rejected messages to give details on how to improve messages.
• Making suggestions on top influencers and trends: If you're noticing a particular influencer is contributing in a major way to a Listening topic, but you're not sure how to incorporate the influencer or trend into your social strategy, start a conversation to get a brainstorm going with your team.
• Asking for more insight on a top post. If you're seeing some well performing posts for your networks, this is a great place to start a conversation to ensure the right teams not only see the top post, but understand exactly what to emulate in the future. 

Starting a Conversation

Let’s explore how to leverage Conversations in Sprout to enhance your team’s collaboration. To view Conversations you must have read-access to the profile of the message.

You can start conversations on the following content and message types in Sprout:

Publishing

• Queued
• Scheduled
• Drafted
• Needs Approval
• Incoming public and private messages
• Outgoing public and private messages
• Brand Keyword messages

Reviews

• Incoming Reviews
• Incoming and sent comments on Reviews

Asset Library

• Text Assets
• Images
• Videos

Listening

• Listening messages that appear in the Messages tab of Topic Insights

Reporting

• Post messages that appear in the Post Performance, Profile Performance and Top Posts widget in the Custom Report builder
• Post messages that appear in the Tag Performance Report in the Top Posts widget and Tag Details view
• Tagged messages that appear in the Top Posts widgets in Post, Profile and Tag Performance Reports

 

To start a conversation:

1. Navigate to the area of the Sprout app where you’d like to start a conversation. 
2. Locate the message or Asset you want to start a conversation.
3. Click Start a conversation or . The Conversation drawer opens showing the title of the message, a timestamp when the conversation was started, a preview of the message and an area to add comments.
4. Enter your comment to start the conversation. You can @mention other members of your team to include them.
5. Press Enter. Your comment is added to the message and the conversation is started.

Responding to a Conversation

When a team member responds to a conversation that you’re a part of, you see a notification appear on the Conversations drawer and on the message itself.

 

When you receive a notification, you can respond to the conversation. 

To respond to a conversation:

1. Click the unread conversation from the Conversation drawer or from a message. The Conversation drawer opens.
   
   
2.  Enter your response to the latest comment. You can @mention other members of your team to include them, if necessary.
   
   
3. Press Enter. Your comment is added to the conversation.

If you click when viewing Message activity, you'll also see any action taken on the message, including the Conversations.

Editing and deleting Conversations

You can edit and delete comments in your Conversations from the Conversations drawer. This way, if you add a comment in error, need to update with more information or find that a comment is no longer relevant, you can ensure that your team members have the latest and greatest information.

Note: You can't edit or delete comments authored by other users.

To edit a comment in a Conversation:

1. Navigate to the Conversations drawer by clicking .
2. Click the Conversation where you want to edit a comment.
3. Click the comment you want to edit. Note that you can only edit comments you authored.
4. Click Edit.
   
   
5. Update your comment, and then click Save.

Now your comment appears with an edited notification next to it.

To delete a comment in a Conversation:

1. Navigate to the Conversations drawer by clicking .
2. Click the Conversation where you want to delete a comment from.
3. Click the comment you want to delete. Note that you can only delete comments you authored.
4. Click Delete. A confirmation message appears.
   
   
5. Click Delete. Your comment is removed and the comment counts in the drawer get updated to show the new number of comments. 

Using Conversations on Sprout mobile

You can access Conversations on Sprout's Android and iOS apps using the Activity section of the Notification Center.

From there you can:

• Add a new message
• @ mention Teams or Users
• Receive Conversations push notifications for @mentions and comments
• View the original post
• Reply via push notifications (iOS only)

Note that you can't start a Conversation via the mobile app, you can only respond to Conversations started on Sprout's web application. 

Conversation FAQs

If a message is deleted, does the Conversation get deleted, too?

No, the Conversation still exists. Instead, an indicator appears stating This message was deleted. You won’t lose the Conversation thread, but the preview of the message disappears.

I can see the comments in the Conversations drawer, but why don’t I see activity updates in the Conversations drawer?

Currently, the drawer holds all internal conversations.

Do I still get notified about comments on Publishing messages?

Yes, if you’re the author of the post, the author of a comment or if you’re directly mentioned in a Conversation, you get a notification in the Conversations drawer. You won’t receive these notifications in the Notification Center. If you have other delivery methods set up (email, mobile push notifications or Slack), you’ll continue to receive them. 

If I edit a comment on a Conversation and @mention a new user, do they get notified?

No, that user won't receive a notification. Instead, the Conversation in the newly @mentioned user's drawer gets marked as unread, so they will see the Conversation in-app.

If I edit or delete a comment on a Conversation, do @mentioned or original authors of the Conversation get notified?

No. Users who were @mentioned in the original comment, nor the author of the comment, get notified of edits or deletions. 

Can I start a conversation on responses to Glassdoor reviews?

No, not at this time. You can start conversations on Glassdoor Reviews themselves.

Why can't I click-through from the Conversations drawer on responses to TripAdvisor Reviews?

Because there isn't a unique profile view for TripAdvisor, you can click-through from the drawer to the profile view on TripAdvisor Reviews themselves.

Will I receive mobile notifications for Reviews conversations?

No, not at this time.

Can I click-through to a message on a featured Listening topic from the Conversations drawer?

No, not at this time. With other active Listening topics, you can click-through to a messages from the Conversations drawer. 

Can I start a Conversation on a Listening Topic or chart?

No, you can only initiate Conversations on Listening Messages in the Messages tab of your Topic Insights. 

If there's a sent message and conversation started on it in Publishing, will I see the conversation in the Post Performance Report?

Yes. 

Can I start a conversation on any reporting widget?

No, not at this time. You can only start conversations on messages in the Post Performance, Profile Performance, Tag Performance and Top Post widget in the Custom Report Builder.

 

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