(Sprinklr clients can get a detailed visual tour of the new Social Application Suite functions here. Not a Sprinklr client? Find out how we can help you be Social@Scale here.)

Take one look at your newsfeed and you’ll notice — there are some epicly bad Facebook applications out there.

Whether you are fighting Pirates as a virtual Ninja, posting virtual Pieces of Flair or virtually stalking a love interest, there’s a Facebook app for that.

Yet, with over 9 million Facebook apps out there, there are plenty of useful applications available, too. Chances are, your company is utilizing Facebook apps.

While there seem to be many stellar third-party apps available, few offer the security, flexibility or administrative visibility required of enterprise business. That’s why, to help your organization create, manage and deploy Facebook applications, Sprinklr offers the Social Application Suite (SAS).

Just recently, we’ve taken the Social Application Suite to the next level. Now, social applications that you create in SAS can be embedded into any website.

You can now utilize any social widget — even custom widgets — across any digital property. Whether you’re posting an interactive widget like a poll, quiz or sweepstakes; media widgets like photo galleries, photo upload forms or video; or the ubiquitous social stream widgets; ensuring consistency across the brand was never easier.

Because these social apps are housed in the Sprinklr platform environment, you’re able to manage customer conversations and maintain a singular, unified view of the social customer, routing and tracking issues across any part of the global enterprise.

Save widgets in the widget library for flexible, local implementation within administrative guidelines. Grant template-specific access to the users that need it with user-based permissions.

The ability to embed social applications in external web sites means your killer, one-of-a-kind Facebook application lives on outside the blue and white. Now that’s something worth (virtually) fighting for.

(Sprinklr clients can get a detailed visual tour of how our Digital Asset Management feature works here. Not a Sprinklr client? Find out how we can help you be Social@Scale here.)

Before social satire launched his political career, U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN) was best known for channeling Stuart Smalley, a Saturday Night Live character spoofing self-help gurus. In his weekly show “Daily Affirmations,” Smalley’s sign-off catch phrase was “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.”

Ironically, Franken had no idea how widespread this sentiment would become for mainstream media, too — as Facebook likes and Twitter retweets are essentially repeated affirmations and assurance that people still like us.

Yet, Franken was even more Nostradamus-like with his “One Man Mobile Uplink Unit,” a recurring skit on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update newscast that skewered the changing nature of multitasking, multimedia reporters. Franken’s modern journalist consisted of him with a giant satellite dish mounted on his head.

He appears to have suffered no long term neck problems.

As journalists and bloggers rush to report things as they happen (often at the expense of accuracy), let alone the millions of messages in personal “news feeds,” your social media team must be prepared to immediately respond to emerging opportunities as well as potential PR disasters.

In either case, when you have only a short window to reply, you don’t want to be spending your time looking for the most relevant documents, photos, and videos to support your pitch — or waste the time it takes to upload all of them.

Sprinklr’s Digital Asset Management (DAM) feature can help you be Social@Scale far more efficiently.

The DAM feature empowers you to build a library of media assets including photos, videos, PDFs, Word documents and spreadsheets available within the Sprinklr platform for you to access and attach to outbound posts. There is no need to upload your media resources every time you want to share it.

In addition, this feature provides you with a secure, centralized location to store and customize your assets for wherever and whenever you need it.

As social media strategist David Meerman Scott notes, there are times when the 24/7 frantic news cycle forces you to respond and play defense, but this same dynamic also creates frequent opportunities to “Newsjack” events for your own purposes.

With Sprinklr’s Digital Asset Management, you’ll be ready to repeatedly do the heavy lifting — without feeling like an industrial satellite dish is strapped to your head!

P.S. If at any time you want to restrict user access to your multimedia files — to prevent anyone from making unauthorized alterations — there also is a Client-Level “Disable Downloading” feature.

(Sprinklr clients can get a detailed visual tour of the LinkedIn Company Page integration here. Not a Sprinklr client? Find out how we can help you be Social@Scale here.)

“Ch-ch-ch-changes…”

It’s no secret – the social media world is a constantly changing landscape. Just when you think you have it all figured out, BAM! – Facebook reinvents their timeline functions, Twitter creates profile cover photos and Google decides to add “Your World” to Search.

Now, add LinkedIn’s Company Pages to the unending list of significant changes to conquer. In August, they overhauled the site’s design with an emphasis on simplicity, making it easier for individuals to find, follow and engage with companies. Then, LinkedIn unveiled new Company Pages, which they claim are a “more powerful way to build relationships with your target audience.”

Don’t panic just yet. Changes are inevitable in this business, so you’ve just got to do as David Bowie would.

“…Turn and face the strain.”

Here at Sprinklr, we took these changes in stride and are proud to announce that LinkedIn Company Pages and related functionality are now fully integrated into the Sprinklr platform. This comes just weeks after we completed the rare “social media hat trick” by becoming one of the first four LinkedIn Social Media Management Partners.

When you’re a Social@Scale enterprise, it means changing at scale, which can be a real headache. Luckily, large-scale outreach with LinkedIn is easy using Sprinklr. The following actions can now be performed within the platform:

• Posting: post new Company Updates, including posts to targeted audiences

• Listening: Monitor Inbox View, Status Updates, Job Posting, Comments, and Position Change

• Message Actions: Workflow, Comment, Delete, standard actions (translate, email, archive, etc.)

• Reporting: Full integration in new Reporting Dashboards

Once you’ve seamlessly transitioned your brand over to the new Company Page with Sprinklr, what are you going to do with all that leftover time? You could really embrace change by busting out that old leotard and finding your inner Ziggy Stardust …just a thought.

Image Courtesy: http://ccccrane.tumblr.com/

(Sprinklr clients can get a detailed visual tour of the New Audience Profile feature and Sprinklr Indices by clicking here. Not a Sprinklr client? Find out how we can help you be Social@Scale here.)

Knowing your audience becomes more and more critical when you are being Social@Scale.

You know those ubiquitous name badges you see at business networking events and social mixers?

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could determine with one glance if the contact by the punch bowl were an influential opinion leader, if he or she had done business with your organization before or if the encounter would likely be a waste of time?

It’s too bad that the Sprinklr platform doesn’t extend to sticker labels.

When you’re being Social@Scale for your Enterprise, our New Audience Profile feature allows you to instantly access background information, social stats and a personality profile on every person posting messages on your various social media channels.

The New Audience Profile allows you to sort users by:

• Recent Engagement
• Reach
• Following
• Posts
• Participation/Influencer/Spam Index

Along with the user’s headshot or chosen avatar, we also provide Sprinklr Indices — symbols that give you a quick sense of the relative importance (or not) of your correspondence.

Our Indices instantly let you know how influential the user is in social media circles, his or her level of participation and also warns of previous spamming behavior. If desired, you can also access their social bio, conversation history, recent status updates, and who’s following or being followed by the user.

All of this intelligence gathering has previously been available for Sprinklr clients, but it was only accessible via different pages and tabs. Our new single view format means less clicking and searching around for your Community Managers.

Every moment saved navigating is another moment you can devote to your customers.

(Sprinklr clients can get a detailed visual tour of the latest New Feature Enhancements by clicking here. Not a Sprinklr client? Find out how we can help you be Social@Scale here.)

Organizing a stamp collection is not like curating social media channels.

Do you know anyone who collects postage stamps?  Philatelists, the fancy term for stamp collectors, spend endless hours sorting and categorizing their collections.

You can sort stamps by year, country, color, world leaders, animals, sports, people, places, etc. Then you can dump your album out and re-sort them in an entirely different way. The same thing could be said for baseball cards, stickers, coins, political buttons, toys or any other collectible competing for eyeballs on eBay.

The difference between memorabilia collectors and social media managers is that collectors enjoy the process of sorting and organizing. There is pleasure in slowly searching through every item and waxing nostalgic over favorites.

When you’re busy becoming Social@Scale, there is no such luxury.

Categorizing messages with tags is vital for retrieving actionable data later on, but there’s no reward for lingering on the task any longer than necessary.

With that in mind, the latest round of Sprinklr Feature Enhancements includes the ability to tag multiple messages at once. We now also automatically place the most frequently used tags at the top of relevant dropdown menus instead of having you search through them in alphabetical order.

Lastly, we’ve added a Profile Audit Trail and a Message Audit Trail that track changes in any user profiles or correspondence in case anything accidentally gets deleted or you need to reference past communications.

We’re constantly tweaking our User Interface to make things incrementally faster. Automating “busy work” might be heresy to collectors, but in social media, it can make all the difference to you and your customers.

Image courtesy of DigitalTribes.

Actor George Takei’s posts on Facebook seem to go viral every time.

Are you familiar with the Facebook fan page of actor George Takei, best known as Mr. Sulu from the original Star Trek TV series?

It almost doesn’t matter what interesting tidbit that Takei posts. There usually are tens of thousands of likes, shares and comments from his loyal base.

Brands rarely enjoy the same consistent viral reach as celebrities (which is why they get endorsement deals). Brands need to play close attention to what subjects and kind of social media posts resonate best with their communities. If a picture, message or link tends to generate buzz for one division of the company, why not ride the wave and share it with other divisions as well?

Sprinklr’s new Content List feature gives Community Managers a global view of all social media posts made across all clients and accounts, allowing them to repurpose these posts to other specific markets and audiences.

The Content List, formerly known as the “Master Calendar,”  lets members of your social media team sort all posts by time or engagement rate, allowing an instant comparison of the latest metrics on:

• Facebook: Likes, Comments, Shares, Reach, Talking About This, Virality, Impressions and Engagement Rate.
• Twitter: Retweets, Replies (Coming Soon)
• YouTube: Views, Likes, Dislikes (Coming Soon)

The Content List feature lets you know what and when your most successful posts have been.

It makes no sense to reinvent the wheel. If a message is already inspiring one segment of your community, chances are it will be popular with other audiences within your family of brands.

Master calendar feature

Of course, not every post will dramatically impact your “Talking About This” number. But using the tools of the Content List will, in the words of Mr. Sulu’s colleague Mr. Spock, help make more of your posts “Live Long and Prosper.”

P.S. If you prefer to analyze or share your most viral posts offline, you can export all your displayed results to your desktop with the same filters and sorting options.

(Sprinklr clients can get a detailed visual tour of the Content List feature by clicking here. Not a Sprinklr client? Find out how we can help you be Social@Scale here.)

Sprinklr’s Android App

Exciting News: It’s now more convenient than ever to use the Sprinklr platform regardless of whether you are chained to your desk or sipping apple martinis in the hot tub.

We’ve just released the Sprinklr for Android mobile app and Version 2.0 of our Sprinklr for iPhone app.

Sprinklr Android Features include:

• Full visibility of content from each Sprinklr-supported social channel.

• Full interactivity with Twitter and Facebook content.

• Quick Post publishing and engaging.

• Monitoring Dashboards, Channels, and Workflow items.

• Interactions with each Message including assigning properties and statuses.

• Interactions with each Profile including assigning properties or assigning to lists.

The Android app can be downloaded from the Google Play. Sprinklr clients can also access our comprehensive guide to the Android app here.

Version 2.0 of Sprinklr’s iPhone App

Sprinklr iPhone Features include:

• Full visibility of content from each Sprinklr-supported social channel.
• Full interactivity with Twitter and Facebook content.
• Quick Post publishing and engaging.
• Monitoring Dashboards, Channels, and Workflow items.
• Interactions with each Message including assigning properties and statuses.
• Interactions with each Profile including assigning properties or assigning to lists.
• The Planner, including sorting by account, message type, and contributor.

The iPhone app can be downloaded at iTunes. Sprinklr clients can also access our comprehensive guide to our latest iPhone app updates here.

We’d love to get your feedback on both mobile apps. As an aside, where’s the most unusual place you’ve found yourself doing Social@Scale?

Drop us a line at info@sprinklr.com

Facebook Share Button: Previously Missing In Action

Good news: Facebook has just fixed a bug that had been mysteriously zapping the “Share” button from all posts published with Sprinklr (and all third party platforms).

Of course, it is the Share button above all else that helps determine what goes viral on Facebook. A quirk in the Facebook system had been deleting the Share button with all 3rd party platforms and only included the options for Likes and Comments.

We’re happy to report that this issue has now been resolved.  Click the images below to review how the Share button appeared in direct posts vs. third party posts before and after the fix:

(Click image to enlarge)

(Click image to enlarge)

In addition, Sprinklr’s two options for posting to timeline (“/me/links” and “/{object}/feed”) now both include ‘native share’ links.  Sharing with these links causes re-shares to point back to the source post — and also streamlines sharing overall. You will no longer need to use the action_link parameter to create your own share links.

We’ve received requests from numerous Sprinklr clients to address these issues and we appreciate your feedback as we’ve worked to get this on Facebook’s radar.

We are always striving to improve how Sprinklr helps you be more productive and efficient. We look forward to your continuing feedback to help make us even better.

Sprinklr clients can click here to find out how our Facebook Open Graph feature works.(Not a Sprinklr client? Request a Demo of how we do Social@Scale here.)

Sally Field’s “You Like Me” Oscar speech is often parodied as the ultimate example of our human need for validation.

Whether you saw the ceremony or not, Sally Field’s Best Actress acceptance speech at the 1985 Academy Awards (for her performance in “Places in the Heart”) remains the standard for unabashed emotion and a symbol of the universal human desire to be liked.

Field is often parodied as saying “You like me, you REALLY like me!”  But she actually said “You like me. Right now, you like me.”  When he didn’t get an Academy Award nomination for “Drive” this year, snubbed actor Albert Brooks tweeted “You don’t like me. You really don’t like me.”

The Facebook “Like” has become so pervasive in the social media culture that it’s almost tough to imagine what commentary was like before the ubiquitous “thumbs up” symbol.

Your total number of Likes is one of several meaningful metrics measuring community engagement. It’s your targeted Facebook mailing list — people who have already interacted with your content and are presumably open to receiving more. But the number of fans on your official Facebook page doesn’t tell the whole story.

The Facebook Like button can be embedded externally on all your content across the Internet: brand webpages, blog posts, anywhere you wish. Your customers who click on this constantly updated content are not always the same people you see counted as one of your official fans.  But Facebook does keep track of who these “bonus fans” are, and so can you.

Sprinklr clients can click here to find out how the feature works. (Not a Sprinklr client? Request a Demo of how we do Social@Scale here.)

Original MTV VJ Martha Quinn

MTV plays very few music videos these days, but do you remember when it seemed that video disc jockeys (or VJs) had the coolest gigs in the world?

Maybe you grew up with the original 1980s crew of Martha Quinn (pictured above), Alan Hunter, Mark Goodman (what great hair), J.J. Jackson and Nina Blackwood — or maybe you were a child of the 1990s video spinmeisters, Downtown Julie Brown, Kennedy and the wacky Jesse Camp.

Too bad most of those jobs are gone.  Or are they?

YouTube, of course, is an indispensable part of any social media campaign and it is likely that your brand is already managing a bunch of different accounts like a building superintendent with too many keys dangling from his belt.

Perhaps you have one YouTube account for a customer video contest, another for official company news, and yet another for product demos or internal training videos. Whatever the purpose, there are valid reasons to simultaneously open and maintain multiple YouTube channels at once.

Using Sprinklr’s YouTube Playlist Accounts, Community Managers can create separate individual playlists within the same YouTube Account. Part of being Social@Scale means that you are able to quickly manage multiple YouTube usernames and passwords, and more importantly, everyone on the social media/marketing team can look at everything the company is broadcasting on YouTube in a glance.