How to Increase Social Media Engagement On Every Post

Mark Fidelman 00:03

Welcome to the digital brand builder podcast where we bring you the best growth strategies from the world’s experts to help build your business faster. And now, here’s your host, Mark Fidelman Hello, everyone, welcome to the brand builder podcast. Joining me today is Aaron Iseman, and we’re going to talk about how to increase your social media engagement on every post and Aaron has promised me he’s going to teach you how to do that. So I’m very interested in that. I mean, he’s got a sports background. He’s worked with tort Turner sports, Bleacher Report and the NFL. So there’s a lot of engagement there and I want to see how we apply that to our own businesses. So Aaron, welcome to the show. And can you give us 100 words or less a bio about yourself?

Aaron Siegal-Eisman 00:56

Thanks very much for having me on mark. A little bit about myself in I’ve spent the last six plus years doing sports social media, specifically for big companies, like you mentioned. And yeah, I’ve just continued to use my own businesses social media consulting business that I built up over last year. So that’s kind of the short bio on me.

Mark Fidelman 01:20

Okay, and what did you do? Exactly? Did you help people in sports? Did you help businesses tell us what you did to get this experience?

Aaron Siegal-Eisman 01:29

Yeah, right out of college. Yeah, after graduating in 2013 2014. I got a position with the with Turner sports in Atlanta. I’m originally from Los Angeles and went to college in the Midwest and then moved to Atlanta for my first position. And it was a social media editor role for Turner sports to run NBA on TNT and NBA TV social media, along with about eight other colleagues of mine and we’re all very young recent group. Graduates as well. And that really kick things off for me. And from then on, I’ve ran, whether it’s NBA TV NBA on TNT, March Madness, PGA social, as well as Bleacher Report and NFL Network social media. So it’s been at least five big channels over a million followers each that I’ve run over these last six years. You

Mark Fidelman 02:25

know, there’s going to be a lot of people that are skeptical about all of this given, you know, more and more of social has gone to paid because, you know, they’re either limiting the reach of these posts, or there’s other things going on with the with the algorithms. So tell us what you do, you know, and maybe lay it out. Tell us what you do to maximize organic social media engagement.

Aaron Siegal-Eisman 02:52

Yeah. First off, it’s understanding brand analysis, who you are, who is the account Are you trying to post things of that nature? Like auditing your past social media posts, seeing kind of what’s done well for you and your account, what needs to be improved? Those types of things, then one of the three pillars that I think I think it’s important social media is content, strategy and analytics. Content is king to me. And it Bill Gates wrote about this about 20 plus years ago, content is king. And it’s all it’s worth read for anybody. But at the end of the day, what you’re posting is important, and who you’re posting it for, are those questions that you need to be worried about. So I’ve learned over a period of time that it matters. What types of these content buckets I learned at Bleacher Report? Are you hitting? Are you hitting the the the trending topics? Are you hitting the personal topics? Are you hitting the you know, the puppy topics or whatever it may be, or the cooking or the personal stuff that people like to engage with? Do it or you hidden the business topics are important about what your business is all about how you want to be perceived on social media and the What do you want to drive? Do you want to drive sales website traffic? But yeah, organically, you really want to worry about content, what you’re posting those types of things. Strategy is why am I posting? Where is it being posted to what platforms and those questions that are very important to how you best strategize for the account and be very intentional with the strategy to make sure that it’s you’re effective with what you’re posting and why you’re posting it, and where you’re posting it. And even when you’re posting are very important questions. And then finally, analytics. If content is king to me, analytics or queen, it’s it’s important to understand the numbers of your account, what’s doing well, what’s not doing well, what needs to be improved upon. And overall, what can you do on your account that makes sense to really have success over a period of time, so If you’re not understanding your numbers, and you’re not understanding how to rebuild that strategy that can grow your accounts organically. Those are the times the three big things I always stress to my clients,

Mark Fidelman 05:10

okay? And when you’re looking at, let’s say Twitter, or LinkedIn, or Facebook, and the algorithms are constantly changing how I know you look at all the data, I know you do all that, but how are you ensuring that the each of these posts get additional engagement above and beyond what the average person gets?

Aaron Siegal-Eisman 05:31

Yeah, you know, so for me, it’s, it’s, you know, you’ve got to always play and maximize around the algorithm, knowing what updates and changes are happening and the algorithm to really best succeed on social media like you talked about. So a lot of it is going to be having a strategy based upon which platforms you’re posting to, for example, in Facebook is a lot better at the other platforms with posting links. driving traffic to websites, to whatever, you know, you really want to drive traffic to a YouTube page, whatever it may be, but it’s good about pushing your content outwards towards other platforms, in terms of website traffic and engagement in that manner. But you know, Instagram is very visual focused, and it’s gonna be all about the Is it a photo? Is it a video? Is it a GIF? Is it a? Is it a podcast, you know, graphic, whatever it may be, you know, you’ve got to be conscious of the visual aspects of Instagram. And it’s very important upon that. And then I think LinkedIn is a very good way to connect the professional environment. So if you have a professional message that is important, where it’s a newsworthy element, where it’s something about your career that’s being changed or adapt something you’ve learned something about your company that you’re working currently working for. People want to keep it very professional very buttoned up. would say on on LinkedIn compared to the other platforms. So you know, your content on there is going to be drastically different than what you do on Instagram, for example. So being part of that algorithm and changing with it, it’s all gonna be about the content at the end of the day, and making sure that you know, what content goes up where and how a post differs on Instagram versus the LinkedIn or Facebook, for example. So if that’s going to be very important, part two, tell him how you can have success individually on different platforms to overall help your your strategy that you’re working on.

Mark Fidelman 07:35

Are there any hacks like if I post something on LinkedIn to get more engagement, for example, controversial questions? are specific types of images or memes, or do you have any advice like for that?

Aaron Siegal-Eisman 07:50

Yeah, you know, to me, it’s always positivity. Authenticity always kills on social media. People want to see you know, not to fail. have others not, you know, on LinkedIn, this company just laid off 20% of staff. I mean, that’s newsworthy, obviously, that’s a little bit buzzword, but they want to see this company, promoted, you know, promoted somebody, you know, whether it’s yourself or someone that you’re close to, to a higher level, and it’s being shown on news and news elements. So a lot of it is going to be when you show the positivity, it’s important, showing that promotions are happening showing that positivity with an organization is happening, showing whatever it may be, that’s positive, authentic people will send to tend to agree with that and and engage with it. And then finally, we were talking about I think, is important. When you ask a question on social media, especially LinkedIn, to talk about how does your professional environment different from this or whatever it may be, you know, questions will always lead to comments in social media environments. So if you ask the right question, At the end of the day that will increase engagement. And that will show your audience that you actually are a deep thinker. And you’re involved in your industry very well so that you’re staying on top of things that are overlooked overall important to the ecosystem of your your, your, your professional environment. So overall, just being on point with with these types of things in terms of the news elements that are positive and authentic, but also asking questions are very important. So kind of hacking an algorithm in a way by showing the best sides of yourself and what you think about is very important on LinkedIn. Okay, and what about me? What do you see is the best platform for businesses to be on now that still has a high amount of organic engagement? I hear a lot about Tick tock, but not because this can translate into Tick Tock easily. But what is it what are the trends? You’re seeing? For me on, it’s constantly I think Instagram has still have a threshold on the on the environment for businesses, it kind of is a way whether whatever you’re posting graphic, a photo, something a Lincoln bio to get some more traffic, I think Instagram is a great way to understand that you’re the visual face of your company through Instagram. Obviously LinkedIn is a good way to so what’s professionally happened to your organization, you’re getting investments, you’re hiring more people, whatever it may be. But at the end of the day, if you have a really good Instagram engagement rate, that’s going to increase what you want to do on social media for your whole platform. So it’s, to me it’s vital to have a good Instagram following to maybe hire someone that just runs Instagram and others some of your other social media platforms. But obviously, like you mentioned, tick tock. It’s still businesses are trying to figure out how do we use it because the engagement rates off the chart with with Tick Tock Americans Instagram, other platforms, but you’ve got to play towards the trends on tik tok, or else you kind of fall behind. And I don’t know if that’s a viable platform for companies to be on necessarily depending on where your company is all about. So, at the end of the day, it’s good to try things out on Instagram and really see what plays well for your engagement. And overall, visually, make sure your company is sound on that department. And that could obviously help your company’s overall perception on social media is when you do have a good Instagram account.

Mark Fidelman 11:33

I think the best I’ve seen is YouTube. I mean, I still have videos from YouTube that are six years old that are still paying dividends. Yeah. Because mainly because of the SEO value of it, but also, I’ve put out 300 for a time it was quite consistent lately. It hasn’t been and it’s just generated a ton of traffic for me and elevated the brand of the company. to a higher level, but you know, good quality videos are hard to produce. It’s not like you just post something on Twitter, I mean, acquires a lot of thought it’s got to be somewhat professional on YouTube doesn’t have to be completely professional, you could sit in front of a webcam and do it. I’ve got a course coming up that shows you how to do that and translate it into leads or dollars. So what are your thoughts on? You know, like YouTube?

Aaron Siegal-Eisman 12:22

Yeah, I think YouTube is, I think it’s, it’s always going to be the really high end quality product video for any of the platforms. So if you can really have a good five to 10 minute video that engages with the audience, but also keeps them watching. And like you talked about SEO is very helpful, because obviously Google owns YouTube. And so if you have a good headline, SEO primed headline that’s very important for Google, so someone to Google like, you know, top 10 reasons to use Photoshop top 10 you know, whatever it may be, and the videos could pop up from five years earlier, because someone’s literally title his five, top five or 10 Top Reasons to use How can use Photoshop. So things pop up nicely, that could, you know, generate traffic and for you. And I think it’s just like you said it could be a webcam that you use, but if you can invest into a high end DSLR, you know, they, I think they range from 300 to $1,000, I guess. But at the end of the day, it really can produce high quality video for yourself. And then in the long run that can lead to more information if you want to drive traffic to a website as well to learn more about, Hey, this is a snack of, of what our company’s teaching but if you want to learn more, go to this website to really get a full engagement in terms of what you can do. I see a lot of people even do like for example, an Amazon FBA course. They’ll do a lot of share my top 10 reasons you need to take my course. Then they send people over to really gain traffic and gain more users. So a lot of it is the ability to have high quality content on YouTube videos that really engage the audience. And people notice, you know, the difference between a phone on YouTube versus a really high quality camera, it’s not a bad idea to invest in one. And then overall, really have good content that resonates with the audience and just keep trying things out on on YouTube and see what plays with the audience because you never know what’s gonna hit now, or it’s gonna hit in five, four or five or six years, because YouTube has that, that shelf life can be really long on YouTube, which is nice about it.

Mark Fidelman 14:37

Yeah, that’s what I love about it. And if you stay away from controversial subjects, and who knows what’s gonna happen with YouTube, I know a lot of people are not happy with their selective censoring. But I think that’ll backfire. I think YouTube will come back around. Because if you start censoring, and then you know, somebody’s going to find a reason to censor anything and then you got people on You know, some of your competitors or other people that don’t like your organization, they’re pointing out really dumb reasons to censor your content. And this is gonna backfire, because if it continues, we’re not gonna put anything out.

Aaron Siegal-Eisman 15:12

Exactly, exactly. So that’s I mean, that’s going to be an important part is this kind of, you know, how does it affect my first amendment? Am I allowed to what types of content Am I allowed to post about? It’s gonna be very controversial and ways to had a moderate moderate it and they need to be careful with what videos they can people can put up but also what videos can be taken down because that can obviously lead to legal issues at the end of the day.

Mark Fidelman 15:39

Yep. So what is if somebody comes to you, they want you to work with with them. What do you tell them to do in terms of engagement? Are you saying focus specifically on organic? Or do you say, hey, there’s got to be a paid approach to this as well?

Aaron Siegal-Eisman 15:58

Yeah, it’s a mixture of balance. I think it’s almost like to me I’ve had like an E 20 aspect 80% organic content that you’re really being thoughtful over, you’re producing yourself. You have people on staff that can help you produce high quality videos, high quality, graphic, design photos, whatever it may be. So I think that’s First off, what’s important is understanding the content that you have, and what pushed out. And then we start to see something trending, you know, a video is doing well, a photo, whatever it may be a piece of content that you see is starting to gain some traction, traction, then that’s where you can put paid behind it, and really get that get that that post to take off. And then that could also lead to more followers. So if you put a little bit of paid money behind it, I recently did with one of my clients where we were, you know, 10 times the engagement of a normal post, and on top of that, we put like $50 behind the post to go over 10 days. period. And that ends up, you know, we ended up adding like another 50 followers, we ended up getting another triple, triple big agent we already got, because of paid included that. So overall, I think you got to be weary about where you spend your money and why you spending money when you’re spending your money. But you take advantage of the highlights and the points that are, you know, relevant to your account. And so be be cautious at times, but be advantageous when you do see something going well for your account, figure out when to strike and when to put money behind it so that it can increase engagement, increased growth following and overall hopefully increase your loyal followers that really want to see more and more content to you because they already like one piece of content. And that’s where the algorithm comes into play. Is it they like one thing and they started like a second or third and then it boosts up your algorithm with that, that that viewer that follower? And so overall has an impact with your audience. So I would say it’s kind of like the 8020 Split but for the most part, organically figure out what you’re doing how to strategy behind it.

Mark Fidelman 18:05

Okay, and do you see any trends that are coming up the pipe that people should be worried about or concerned about or excited about in terms of social media engagement? Is it going to go all paid? For example, there’ll be no organic. What? I know, I’m exaggerating there, but what do you see is the future?

Aaron Siegal-Eisman 18:23

Yeah, I mean, I think paid will, its cautious to me as a person who is a journalist at heart. I always want to see content do well, and be important part of an account, but I think paid will become more and more involved Facebook and Instagram. People put a lot a lot of money towards to really help boost their posts and stuff. And so it’ll affect the algorithm a little bit, when I’m sort of starting to see is the data that Facebook Instagram has on people is pretty, you know, it’s relevant and it’s apparent To a certain extent, for example, in my in my newsfeed on Instagram, I’m constantly seeing by this mask by that mask by this, they’re always, you know, once you click on one thing, one mask, then 10 masks will pop up throughout your newsfeed. So is that necessarily a good thing? It’s, you know, it’s a data. Obviously, it’s scary that they have all this data on you and they know how to advertise towards you. And that is good for the advertiser side, but it’s good for the user side. And that can become scary in a way where it’s like, when I search Adidas for shoes, three Adidas ads are popping up on my Facebook feed. So does that necessarily help the audience it’s going to move towards it, and then I think, I think people are gonna, you know, at the end of the day, they’re going to try to use tik tok, but they’re getting kicked out very poorly, because they’re not going to be trending trend worthy, and they’re just gonna be account that needs to be on tik tok in the first place. So those types of things are what worries me The ad dollars is gonna keep going up and increasing on Facebook and Instagram, and maybe Twitter one day it will be really high up there as well. But for the most part, yeah, the ad dollars are going to go up will will the sense of being on account will the sense of being on one platform versus another change? Because the younger audience hates to see this, the sales and the business post, they want to see authenticity, the artist authenticity, the positivity. So that will definitely change things when there’s more and more salesy like posts on your feed, I would say.

Mark Fidelman 20:36

All right, well, a very interesting discussion. And I want to end with two final questions. I ask everybody these questions because I really want to know what’s really resonating with people right now. And the first question is, what is the hottest digital marketing technology that you recommend?

20:54

Yeah, I mean, right now, I’m