People in Focus: Joe Horton Glover

Sophie Beard posted on 1 October 2021

Welcome to People in Focus, our series of Q&A’s shining the spotlight on industry experts in social media. We’re delighted to announce Joe Horton Glover, Team Leader at Low&Behold, as our latest guest. You can read the full Q&A below, or download a PDF version here.

Tell us a bit about your journey of working in social media. How long have you worked in social media and how have your roles progressed over time?

I’ve been working in social media for around 3 years now, though roles prior to this had social media elements, too. I originally started in an account exec / entry level position, where the majority of my role was focused on community management and organic content.

I was keen to move into paid social, and after some training was lucky to get my hands on client work involving large budgets, which opened a lot of doors in terms of experience. Google Ads certifications were the next to get under my belt, and alongside another member of the team we were able to launch Google Ads as a brand-new service to our clients.

I now lead a team of account managers and account execs and also look after a few clients of my own, which certainly keeps me busy!

What are the main changes in social media you’ve noticed since the start of your career?

The increased importance of utilising paid social is probably one of the most significant changes I’ve seen. Over the years, high levels of organic reach by business pages has been getting harder and harder to achieve.

The emergence of TikTok videos and Instagram reels as a new standard content format has also been really interesting, which brings a whole new style of content creation to social media marketing.

What is a typical day like for you in your role?

There’s really no such thing as a typical day! My role is split into three main areas – supporting the social media team, working with my clients, and supporting our business development team on sales opportunities. The proportion of my week taken up by each of those areas varies a lot, so no two weeks are alike.

While most things are really varied, there are a few things that tend to stay consistent. I’ll check any live paid social campaigns first thing in the mornings and at the end of each day to ensure they’re delivering successfully, and have some regular meetings with clients or team members that will happen at the same time each week.

Which part of your role do you enjoy the most?

I’d say it’s a tie… either the satisfaction of switching on a big paid social campaign that has had a huge amount of effort put into it, or sitting in on a client meeting and seeing a member of my team do an awesome job of leading discussions. Both are really rewarding.

What are the different challenges you’ve faced in your roles? How have these changed over time? And how did you overcome them?

Time management and prioritisation of tasks have both been very challenging at times. Having a very varied role means that you always need to be as far ahead with your work as possible so that you can take on whatever comes your way without issues cropping up.

Another common challenge is new clients coming to us without access to their Facebook Business Manager account. It has always been difficult to regain access to a Facebook page in situations like this, however hopefully it’s something that Facebook will make easier in future.

What do you see as essential to achieve success in social media?

A willingness to move with the times! Being an early adopter of new features, tools, and platforms is a great way to get the most out of social media for your clients.

What is the greatest barrier or challenge facing the development of social media?

A big challenge at the moment is a change in the way that we can track users on client websites. Many social media marketers rely heavily on cookies to track the performance of social media campaigns, however this could all change due to Google’s efforts to phase out 3^rd party cookies by 2022.

Alternative methods of tracking are emerging in anticipation of the phase-out, though time will tell if they are as effective.

If you had to choose just one social media channel to use, which would you choose and why?

For me this has to be Instagram. This is because it combines my favourite features from the world of social media. ‘Saved posts’ sorted into collections is very similar to boards on Pinterest, ‘Reels’ gives you a lot of the TikTok video experience, ‘Stories’ gives you what I enjoyed most from Snapchat, and your own grid of posts on your profile is great for people who, like me, enjoy sharing photography.

What tools do you rely on to fulfill your role?

A good task management tool is one of the things I find most essential for carrying out my role well. For many people, working in social media (especially in an agency) involves keeping a lot of different plates spinning at once, so making sure that tasks aren’t forgotten is really important.

What would be the most important piece of advice you’d give to someone starting their career in social media?

Always question what you’re doing and why. Is there a more effective way? Is what you’re doing helping to achieve the overall objective that you have in place?