Release Notes 2026

Sprout Social's release notes are a great way to keep up-to-date and make the most out of new feature functionality released in the Sprout platform.

Get a breakdown of new features and updates below. Each section gives you a quick sneak peek of the update and what it can bring to your social team. You can review 2025 Release Notes here. 

Releases this year

• October 15 - Instagram Multi-Image Stories
• October 12 - PDF Stories in Employee Advocacy
• September 14 - Report Comparison Widget
• July 27 - New Impression Data
• May 18 - Improved Onboarding
• April 6 - Allows Readers to Self Enroll in Teams
• January 29 - Guardian Blocked Words in Employee Advocacy
• January 20 - SSO Exception Allowlist
• January 12 - Increased Control Over Topic Following Status

October 15, 2026

Instagram Multi-Image Stories

We are excited to expand multi-image story sharing in Employee Advocacy to Instagram Business Profiles. Previously available only for LinkedIn, story curators can now include rich photo galleries for Instagram, giving your brand ambassadors a vibrant, visual way to showcase your organization.

When curating a photo story in Employee Advocacy, you can upload multiple images and select Instagram Business Profiles alongside LinkedIn. Sprout automatically validates your images against Instagram aspect ratio specifications, ensuring your content looks professional and publishes smoothly.

Employees can share multi-image stories directly to their connected Instagram Business Profiles from both the Employee Advocacy web application and mobile app. All share and impression activity will automatically be tracked within your Employee Advocacy reports. Learn more here. 
 

October 12, 2026

PDF Stories in Employee Advocacy

We're excited to introduce PDF Stories in Employee Advocacy, a new story type that lets your team share PDF carousel posts directly to LinkedIn through Advocacy.

Many teams rely on PDF carousel posts as a core part of their LinkedIn strategy. Now, admins can upload PDF files (up to 100 MB and 300 pages) as stories that readers can view in full and share or schedule to their personal LinkedIn profiles. The same multi-page assets your brand shares on its corporate channels can now be amplified across your employee network.

PDF Stories can be viewed in both the Advocacy web interface and the Advocacy mobile app. Sharing is limited to LinkedIn, the network that natively supports this document format. You can also set a PDF story as an internal, read-only resource when you want employees to stay informed without sharing externally.

PDF Stories are available as part of the Employee Advocacy add-on. Learn more here. 

September 14, 2026

Report Comparison Widget

We're introducing the Comparison Widget to the General Report in Employee Advocacy, giving you a powerful new way to understand what's driving your program's performance.

Previously, comparing performance across teams, topics, or tags required filtering one group at a time and manually comparing numbers. Now, the General Report includes a comparison table that breaks down your program's key metrics — Shares, Potential Reach, Impressions, Engagements, Clicks, and Earned Media Value — by Network, Team, Topic, Tag, or Month in a single view.

You can switch between breakdown groups instantly, sort the table by any metric or alphabetically, and search for specific teams, topics, or tags when those breakdowns are active. Results are paginated for easy scanning, even for large programs. The comparison table respects your existing report filters, so you can drill into specific date ranges and teams before applying a breakdown. Learn more here.

July 27, 2026

New Impression Data!

Until now, Advocacy reporting showed Potential Reach:  the total combined connections of employees who shared a post. Starting today, you can also see actual Impressions: the number of times your employees' shared content was viewed across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X.

Impressions complement Potential Reach rather than replacing it. Potential Reach helps you understand the scale of your employees' networks, while Impressions show you how many people actually saw the content. Together, they give you a much more complete picture of your program's real-world impact.

You'll find the new Impressions metric in the Content Report and User Report tables, their corresponding CSV exports, and the Advocacy Network Overview widget in My Reports. If you'd like to customize which metrics your team sees, both Impressions and Potential Reach can be independently toggled on or off under General Settings. Learn more here!

May 18, 2026

Enhanced Onboarding for Advocacy Users!

We've introduced a brand new, guided, multi-step onboarding experience to help every new Advocacy user get started right away!

What's new?

Upon first login (via invite, SSO, or domain sign-up), users will now be guided through a personalized experience that ensures their "Stories" feed is immediately relevant and they are set up to share.

The streamlined flow includes:

• Welcome & Overview: A branded introduction explaining the content users are about to see.
• Team Selection: Users can review and join teams to tailor their content feed.
• Topic Selection: Users can follow high-interest topics, guaranteeing their feed is populated with relevant stories.
• Profile Connection: A strong encouragement to connect social profiles, especially LinkedIn, to enable immediate content sharing.

This new experience is designed to increase user engagement and retention by focusing on the primary value, sharing content, right from the start. Learn more here!

April 6, 2026

Allows Readers to Self Enroll in Teams

Administrators can now give you the power to manage your own team enrollment! You can join or leave teams directly from your personal settings page, ensuring you always get the most relevant assignments and content. Learn more here. 

January 29, 2026

Guardian Blocked Words in Employee Advocacy

Amplify your brand reach with more security. . Admins can now proactively protect outgoing employee communication, to help ensure brand alignment and safety. This means  stronger trust and credibility for your customers at every touchpoint. Learn more here. Click here to learn more.

January 20, 2026

SSO Exception Allowlist: Provide Password Login for Select Users

Customers using Single Sign-On (SSO) now have greater flexibility with the new SSO Exception Allowlist. This feature allows you to designate specific users, like contractors or agency partners, to log in with a username and password while requiring all other users to log in via SSO. This addresses the challenge of an "all-or-nothing" SSO requirement, giving you more control over your login security and user access. Click Here to learn more. 

January 12, 2026

Increased Control Over Topic Following Status

Admins now have more control over how readers follow topics! When creating or editing a topic, you can choose one of three "Reader Access" settings to manage the default following status for your users:

• Required: All readers must follow the topic and cannot unfollow. (Note: You must always have at least one required topic.)
• Automatically Followed: All new readers follow the topic by default, but they can choose to unfollow. (This is the existing default behavior.)
• Optional: Readers do not follow the topic by default, but they can choose to follow it.

This update helps ensure readers are seeing the most relevant content and reduces noise from less relevant topics.