Sprouting A Social Empire

Earlier this year, Sprout Social (a social media monitoring tool) announced that it had received financial support from Groupon founders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky. But with so many other social media tools and websites – such as Dex One Corporation

and SuperMedia Inc.

– available, what makes Sprout Social better than the rest? “We think it's important for small businesses and mid-size businesses to have great tools to help monitor and influence their presences on the social graph,” Keywell told Benzinga during a

. “Sprout Social was the best one we've seen, with phenomenal entrepreneurs behind it. And we made the investment which has now proven to be a good one in that Sprout is getting great traction, organically great traction.” The reason, Keywell said, is that it helps small businesses get more customers, which in turn helps them make more money. Adds Keywell, “To me, if you can use the social graph to get more customers and make more money and we're the facilitator at Sprout Social – that's a home run.” To hear more from the Groupon founder – including his common threads on startup success – don't miss Benzinga's

with Brad Keywell.