Sprout Social knows when you’re sleeping, awake, and checking social media

Sprout Social kicked off two new publishing tools today to further help businesses get the most out of their social media campaigns: Sprout Queue and ViralPost.

Sprout Queue makes it easier to coordinate and schedule content for delivery in advance. For brands and companies that have large marketing teams and multiple social media accounts, it can be difficult to keep track of everything. The automated future delivery tool makes it easier to manage pending posts.

“We are starting to see a lot more large teams that need to manage complex social channels,” said CEO Justyn Howard. “A year ago, it was one or two people in the marketing department managing a small handful of profiles. Now, a lot more companies have 20, 30, 40 users managing dozens of profiles. They need tools to do that effectively and collaborate.”

As the strength of marketing campaigns relies heavily on their reach, Sprout Social developed ViralPost (patent still pending). The technology looks at people’s engagement patterns, content velocity, and a series of other “levers” to determine the exact moment when publishing will have the greatest impact. The algorithm takes some of the guesswork out of marketing strategy and has proven to increase audience engagement by more than 30%. Sometimes, even a half an hour can make a huge difference.

Sprout Social works with startups like Twilio, Yammer, and Asana, as well as massive companies like Nike, McDonalds, and Nokia.

“In some cases, our product is used by a small handful of people managing customer service and in others, it is a global team,” said Howard. “Use cases are wide, and that is a testament to the tool.”

The company raised $10 million from New Enterprise Associates last February and has since expanded both the team and the product. It launched and received its first round of funding in 2010, led by Groupon founders Eric Lefkofsky and Bray Keywell’s venture fund Lightbank. It currently has around 50 employees and is based in Chicago.