Social Media Marketing Dos & Don’ts. Gareth O’Sullivan explains.

1. So Gareth, as a social media expert, how do you spend a typical day in social media? Are there any tools or practices that make your life easier?

When it comes to social media, my day consists of various things. I curate, create and write up content for various social media networks., the main ones being Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Throughout the day, I’ll keep an eye on the social media activity and engage with other users, giving it that human touch.

I’m a big fan of tools. I’ve tried too many tools to even count them up. My favourite ones for curating content are Buzzsumo and Zest.is. When it comes to creating content, I’ll typically use Canva, Adobe Spark or Photoshop – depending on what I’m creating. For scheduling content, my favourites are Buffer, CoSchedule and ContentStudio.

I’m always keeping an eye out for new tools, sometimes I can be found over at Product Hunt.

2. How can a brand achieve growth hacking using Social Media?

Brands can achieve growth hacking via using various tools and strategies in conjunction with social media efforts. I covered some powerful growth hacking tools in this article that marketers should utilise to maximise success.

It all comes down to trial and error and identifying what works for your brand and what doesn’t, then identify why it isn’t working and find a solution.

3. Are there any social media traps a brand should definitely avoid?

Of course! – There’s quite a few.

I would say one of the big mistakes that every brand should avoid is not engaging with your followers. If you never reply to them, engage back with them, answer their questions or even share content they want then you won’t get far. You need to provide your followers with value. Engage with them, thank them for sharing an article, maybe even include a gif in that message.

Social Media Marketing Dos: Engage with your followers! Click To Tweet

It doesn’t take too long and it’s very simple. Don’t be ignorant to your followers.

Another mistake I see quite often is when brands only share content about themselves. Your followers don’t just want to be fed with your sales posts. If they are interested, they’d be checking your website out. Provide them value, give them the latest news in your industry, give them tips and best practices, share your interesting articles that provide value.

Social Media Marketing Don'ts: Only share content about your brand! Click To Tweet

4. What is your biggest advice for newcomers, from your personal experience so far?

My biggest advice would be to schedule out times for when you work on social media activities. It’s easy to get distracted and sometimes spend too much time on one specific task – especially when it comes to content creation. A to-do list is also very helpful.

If you set out a specific time slot for each task, you’ll start to notice you become more organised, more focussed and will most likely be much more productive than you thought. That allows you to then be pro-active for future tasks that may come your way. There’s nothing worse than leaving things to the very last minute. Trust me. You’ll just get stressed out and might even make a few mistakes.

5. Finally, how do you see the future of Social Media Marketing? Is automation a new big trend?

Social Media Marketing will continue to grow, that won’t die anytime soon. Most people spend their time on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WeChat and Snapchat.

Influencer Marketing is on the rise and we’ll definitely see more of that in the coming future, but most likely from micro-influencers. Brands are clocking on and have noticed an increase in engagement from influencers with a following in the 10,000 to 100,000 range according to Digiday’s research.

Automation has been around for quite a while, but it will make more of an appearance in the coming years. Especially with the increase in artificial intelligence. Chat bots are already a big thing, and that’s going to continue even more- we’ll see much more of them and they’ll hopefully be even more clued up to deal with some complicated questions people may have. Whilst the increase in automation can be a good thing, we must remember to not forget to add human touch.

Short Profile:

Gareth O’Sullivan is a versatile digital marketer with key expertise on various social media platforms including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube and many more. Gareth also writes various articles sharing his knowledge in digital marketing.

Brand Profile:

Gareth is responsible for all social media marketing, content and community management for SkillsLab.io by Creation Agency, a resource hub for every hungry sales and marketer with a passion for expanding their knowledge in the consistent growing marketing and sales industry.

You can find Gareth on Twitter (@_GarethG), LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. You can also follow his journey travelling across the world on his travel blog.