Sprout Social launches #BePresent, a free tool to help brands track their social engagement

Sprout Social, a company that provides a suite of tools to help companies monitor their brands in conversation across the social web, has introduced a new tool this week called #BePresent. The service helps brands track their engagement rates online, rating them against others to provide a percentile grade.

The free service is a scan of Twitter activity. It’s a slice of the sort of thing that Sprout Social provides to its clients, but as the price is right, it could be a fun checkup for any brand, no matter how small.

#BePresent analyzes a Twitter account’s activity, tracking response times, industry average response times – for comparison – and the number of received @ messages that have been received, and returned. Here’s what a report looks like:

The catch to the deal is that you have to tell Sprout Social who you are, and give them an email address. #BePresent is obviously a way for Sprout to find new customers. That said, picking up some basic facts about your Twitter activity is likely worth the extra email or two that will find their way to your inbox.

There are broad overtone similarities with #BePresent and what the Simply Measured crew are up to. Both provide analytics of social data. Though Sprout’s toolset is different, both are working towards the same goal: making sense of the global conversation on social platforms.

Both companies are among Twitter’s Certified Products Program.

Along with the launch of #BePresent, Sprout is rolling out a number of new social media management tools. If you are a Sprout customer, expect some new goodies.

Top Image Credit: veggiefrog