Sprinklr Social Index is a benchmarking tool that was recently introduced by Sprinklr, which is a unified customer experience management solution powered by artificial intelligence. The tool has been introduced to check if companies have been able to build engaging and relevant discussions between customers on social media platforms.
According to the recent report, there is a gap emerging between brand presence and audience interaction, as very few companies manage to establish a relevant conversation despite being highly engaged with social media.
These results are compiled based on over one million social engagements evaluated over 1,160 brands during an 11-month period. In contrast to social media benchmarks, which may be affected by temporary spikes in engagement caused by short-lived viral trends or campaigns, the Sprinklr Social Index concentrates on consistent performance throughout the long term.
“Brands don’t lack visibility. They lack relevance,” said Sprinklr Chief Administrative Officer, Joy Corso. “The brands winning on social aren’t the ones saying the most – they’re the ones showing up in the right moments, with relevance and clarity to create meaningful connections. Brands that listen continuously across every customer touchpoint, use AI to separate real signals from social noise, and act on those insights through a single, unified system are well prepared to win the moment.”
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Measuring the Gap Between Social Activity and Customer Impact
The Sprinklr Social Index introduces a normalized scoring system ranging from 0 to 10, designed to measure both how brands engage on social platforms and how audiences respond to those efforts.
The framework combines two key performance indicators:
- Brand Index: Evaluates brand activity, including posting frequency, responsiveness, and content performance
Audience Experience Index: Measures audience response through engagement, sentiment, and earned conversation - Together, these metrics provide a more comprehensive view of social media effectiveness by focusing not only on publishing volume, but also on emotional connection, trust, and customer interaction quality.
- According to the report, many organizations continue to prioritize content output over meaningful engagement, leading to a widening gap between brand presence and audience perception.
Key Findings Reveal Challenges Across Industries
The report identifies several industry-wide trends that demonstrate how brands often struggle to convert visibility into sustained customer relevance.
High Activity Does Not Guarantee Engagement
Retail brands were among the most active sectors on social media, yet 78% failed to generate meaningful audience engagement despite high posting volumes.
Broadcast-Only Strategies Continue to Dominate
Within the technology sector, 76% of brands still operate primarily in “Broadcast mode,” focusing on product launches and promotional announcements without maintaining consistent two-way audience interaction. According to Sprinklr, this contributes to weaker sentiment and declining momentum over time.
Negative Sentiment Remains a Major Challenge
Telecommunications brands recorded a median sentiment score of –19, while financial services organizations experienced approximately 45% negative sentiment overall. However, the report notes that top-performing brands improved outcomes not by increasing posting frequency, but by changing how they engage with audiences in real-time interactions.
Sprinklr suggests the issue is not necessarily a lack of effort, but rather outdated operating models that continue treating social media as a campaign-driven publishing channel instead of a real-time customer engagement environment.
Introducing a Five-Stage Social Maturity Framework
To help organizations better understand social performance progression, the Sprinklr Social Index categorizes brands into a five-stage maturity model based on how effectively they engage in meaningful customer moments.
- Broadcast (SI 0–1.7) Brands primarily operate through one-way publishing with minimal customer interaction or engagement.
- Presence (SI 1.7–2.5) Organizations maintain consistent activity levels but engagement remains reactive and relatively shallow.
- Interaction (SI 2.5–3.5) Brands begin building two-way dialogue and stronger community participation.
- Resonance (SI 3.5–6) At this stage, organizations establish deeper emotional connections, stronger customer advocacy, and increased trust.
- Convergence (SI 6+) Unified real-time engagement is achieved through social media, customer care, and AI insights, which allow for better customer experience.
As mentioned by Sprinklr, entering the Resonance stage signifies a new approach to business strategy by moving away from social interactions to advocacy and engagement. The Convergence stage shows a higher level of operation wherein social interactions, customer care, and AI insights work together in real-time operations.
AI and Unified Customer Experience Become Central to Social Strategy
The introduction of the Social Index indicates a wider shift within the industry towards using artificial intelligence to manage customer experiences, whereby companies are now required to react to customer communications on an ongoing basis rather than through individual marketing campaigns.
Sprinklr frames the Social Index as a strategic resource for firms interested in gaining deeper insight into the way that customers’ perceptions are formed through social media, and how artificial intelligence can be used to detect relevant engagement amidst increasing amounts of social noise.
With brands constantly adjusting their strategies to cope with the reality of fragmented, real-time customer interactions, the potential impact of a framework such as the Sprinklr Social Index will only become more significant.