Dustin Heise 0:00

Awesome. Well, it's great to have Aaron Siegel Eisman here with me today. It's so good to get to spend some time together. Really appreciate you making some time, Aaron. I know your schedule is beyond hectic and you know doing such cool stuff these days. Today's guest is Aaron Eisman, founder and CEO of Eisman Digital and a leading voice in sports social media who has helped grow audience from major brands like the NFL, Bleacher Report, and Turner Sports, driving billions of views and engagement across all platforms. Welcome, my friend. Good to have you here today.

Aaron Eisman 0:29

Thank you. I'm excited to be here and I appreciate the intro. It's uh taken a lot of time, energy, and posting to where I got to be where I am today, but it's been a great career and I'm just probably a third of the way along, anyways.

Dustin Heise 0:42

Love hearing that. Well, you know, when we get to say things like billions of views, yeah heck yeah, man, it's taken a lot to get to where you are today. You know, maybe share a little bit like how'd you get started in creating content to reach these millions and billions of views and clicks and people that want to engage with the content and just the understanding of the volume we're putting out.

Aaron Eisman 1:03

Yeah, I mean, for me, it was I didn't know I could have a career in social media. I came out of college at Indiana University with a journalism degree. Thought I wanted to be a sports writer growing up because that's I I read the Los Angeles Times, I read books on social media or books on sports. And next thing you know, I came out of college and had this journalism degree, and someone found me at Turner Sports and said, maybe we should hire this guy along with eight other recent college grads to run social media for us. They took a big chance on us, but it was kind of one of those things where like my mentor, uh Morgan DeWan, who was their director of social for Turner Sports, said we want kids endemic to the space. And young college grads were that that's what it was. And so although I didn't have much of a MySpace or Instagram or Facebook following at the time, I learned how to grow one quickly for big brands like Turner Sports, like MB on TNT, NBA TV, March Madness, PGA, social media. Ran those channels throughout a one-year contract and learned a lot along the way. And it was just kind of post cool content and get it out there and look at the analytics later on. But there wasn't much analytics. But it was cool to see that I gotten the millions and billions of views, and Vine was a big deal for us and some of these other channels as well. But like it was just cool to be where I am today because of that risk they took on us or that that leap of faith.

Dustin Heise 2:22

Amazing, man. Well, it's neat how life comes together. And, you know, of course, you probably went a million miles a minute within that opportunity. But when did you realize social media could actually, you know, deepen the connection between fan and sport?

Aaron Eisman 2:34

You know, middle to end of 2015, when I was in towards the end of my one-year contract at Turner Sports, it wasn't like a necessity you had to have social media yet. But I think by when I was at Bleach Report in 2016, 2017, it was like we're gonna dump tons of money, millions of dollars into social media. We're gonna hire creators and videographers and editors and influencers and content creators that can do stuff. I mean, content wasn't even a word in 2014, 2015 to us. And now it's like content is king, you know, to which Bill Gates said 30 years ago. But for us, it was just kind of like it's like the easiest way and free way to connect to audiences. So like these brands, you know, they had TV going, and TV's great and it's good for certain generations, but they realized like if we want to get to the younger generation, social media was the key. And so Bleachabore dumped in money into it, Turner Sports dumped in money into an ESPN. All these brands were dumping money into it because they saw the future of being media is through social media, not just other forms of marketing like PR and SEO and TV and OTT platform and stuff like that. It was social media where it's connected to the audience very quickly and get results, you know, numbers and views and stuff like that. So, yeah, once they figured out that we need to dump money into it, then they need to figure out how to get the harvest ROI and get money from it. So that's kind of where it went from that to that.

Dustin Heise 3:55

Yeah, and that's kind of the how I'm gonna shape the question too to kind of carry this going is is um, you know, when did you guys see the shift to storytelling and building the narrative around the approach? As you're, I'm assure, like throwing spaghetti at the wall early days trying to get numbers up, like you said. But when did that shift to like knowing that the storytelling needed to be a big part of that?

Aaron Eisman 4:15

You know, it was a big thing from like phrase that I learned maybe in the 2010s or some mid-2010s or late 2010s was like how to stop the scroll and what's gonna get to stop the scroll. Algorithms change, platforms change, the consumption habits of the audience change, all that changes a period of time. But what keeps strong is understand that certain types of content will work better than other types of content. Like maybe a dance video would work for so many times for some TikToker, but a storyline-driven content video of a personality-driven content, like stuff like that, is gonna play well to the audience to develop them and to keep you along the ride of them. Because some creators are one-trick ponies, some brands are one-trick ponies. But what's gonna stand out is can you tell a story in the right way, in the right light, in the right amount of time, on the right vertical? Can you do that properly and can you repeat it doing over and over again? And it takes in-house resources, creators, and people that can make cool content to extend your brand, extend your following, make them do, you know, buy merch or watch something on a website or watch something on TV. It's gonna take a heavy-duty task, but storyline-driven content will get people there to where it's, you know, it's so cool and connects to an audience in a different light.

Dustin Heise 5:30

Aaron Powell From a sport perspective, you know, what kind of content have you seen work or how have you continued to transition it to something that's real enough that you know people actually care about?

Aaron Eisman 5:41

Yeah. I mean, I think for us it's it was always this term of content buckets. Like it's sometimes certain content buckets are gonna work wet better than others for certain brands. I'm learning that in the daily. But like for us, it was like, you know, at sports level, it's breaking news. Like we didn't have so funny because Bleacher Board didn't really have like a breaking news staff team like you know, ESPN does or Fox Sports or CBS Sports and that that they do. But what we do is if someone were to put out a post, like I remember here's a good story, in uh July 4th, almost you know, five or six, no, almost like nine years ago, when uh Kevin Durant won it went to the Warriors, Players Tribune just posted, hey, click the link and find out where Kevin Durant's headed. But I was I read the article, I'm sitting in my bleach reward seat reading the article, no one's around me because it's July 4th, and I'm realizing, wow, like he's going to the Warriors. Let's just do a post that says breaking news, he's going to the Warriors. Because not everyone wants to click a link to go to uh to go read an article in that time. So I did that. We became more viral than Players Tribune or ES Spin or other people because I was quick with it and I decided to break news very quickly. So breaking news was a bucket, highlights were a bucket, funny moments, jersey swaps, jersey swaps we used to call them, or face swaps, or Pokemon, motion effects, graphics, you know, things of that nature. Memes were a big thing and that we developed, a meme team kind of a thing. Yep that those they called themselves. So there was this kind of like, let's develop content buckets that work for our audience, and that can engage them and then they get them to the website or the app or to other things so we can make monetize them as much as possible.

Dustin Heise 7:20

Love hearing that. And thanks for sharing that, by the way. I mean, learning so much in the very early short chat that we've had already. Do you mind just sharing a little bit about like any of the entities you've worked with? I know you've worked with a ton, you know, from NFL to NBA tip, Leecher Report. What brands are writing this story and then with intention driving great results out of that? Because I'm sure you're driving VLUs, you're driving clicks, and that is great because that could be a goal. But for some brands, that's not the only goal. It's about shaping the story. You know, who do you think's, and I'm sure there's tons that are doing it great, but give just give me an example of someone that's doing it great or has done it great that you've worked with to shape that whole story to get the result they're looking for.

Aaron Eisman 8:02

I consulted a little bit back in the day with them, but Nike does a great job. I mean, they have amazing resources in Wheaton and Kennedy, Wyden and Kennedy as a PR firm or advertising firm, but I think they do a great job of they know their voice, they know their narrative, they know what types of content works, they know to capitalize on the moment, and then they put out content right away or the next day, whatever it may be, someone wins a championship. Well, this this is a Nike athlete. Let's do a story about them, or like a instead of just do it, just done it, or whatever it may be, like they they capitalize on their motto in different ways to connect to the audience. So I think they know who they are. They're not doing funny memes, they're not doing crazy, you know, tweets like Wendy's does, but they're actually like playing to this is our brand, this is our narrative, and this is our motto, and this is what we're gonna go after. So they stick to who they are and themselves really well and do a good job of it. I never talked, I never was with Wendy's, but Wendy's does a good job of like making fun of the competition and saying we're real beef and we're not frozen and this and that. And they don't mind making fun of people and trolling people, which has an audience on Twitter X because of that. So they probably have gotten thousands, if not millions, of new customers because they're good on social media, I'm sure. There's a there might not be a direct correlation, but there's a correlation. Sure, there is. They're funny. Let me go try their food. You know, I've I'm I've only I tried Wendy's the first time a couple years ago because I never grew up with Wendy's, it wasn't like a thing. McDonald's and Burger King were the things. Um, so I want to try Wendy's because I saw a lot of their tweets and posts and I thought it was funny. And uh, I want to try the real meat or non-frozen meat, whatever it is. Rands like that will play well into it, and I think athletes are the most powerful. Their personality-driven content, their way to connect to audience. Whether it's a Steph Curry or LeBron James or Kevin Durant going off on Twitter, X, or other, you know, I think there's other names like, you know, Tom Brady's doing a good job. He has a good team around himself. So there, I think athletes are realizing if you capitalize on the moment and have teams around you that can like create content, have fun with it, do this and that, then you can make thousands, if not millions of dollars off social media because of your your audience and then how you approach the audience and post to them. And then that brings results to you monetarily, not just new followers.

Dustin Heise 10:17

I love it, man. By the way, yes, love a dollar frosty.

Aaron Eisman 10:21

Yeah.

Dustin Heise 10:21

So yeah, with you on the Wendy's front these days. You've worked with tons of major brands, but you know, you've gone from working with major brands to building your own company. And what pushed you to bet on yourself, Aaron? How did you know like you got this?

Aaron Eisman 10:35

I was in this kind of sense of um contract from Turner Sports, then Bleach Report went through mass layoffs in the company. Five to ten percent of the company got laid off in one day or two days. Then went to another contract with the NFL and loved it. But you know, they said they kind of gave me the comeback next year mentality. And at that point, I was just kind of like, okay, I'm just getting frustrated with this. Like I have great experience, I have great knowledge, I've learned a lot from my mentors and people along the way. But let me bet on myself. My uncle, Uncle Bobby, I'll give him a shout-out, said to me, Why don't you do a do your own thing and see what happens and be a consultant? And that's what he did for 30 years, and he said, Why don't you do it? And so I did it. And I July 2019, seven years ago almost to the day, decided to go on my own, become a consultant, work with talent. I I saw the need in 2019, even that athletes need help on social media. They're going to become the face of brands. They are already like LeBron is Nike in a way. Like, you know, the correlations. Kobe Bryant is Nike. Those types of correlations were happening. But the thing people weren't thinking of, and LeBron started making it real, is uninterrupted more than an athlete. So I started trying to help athletes out. I helped out an agency called Life Sports Agency. They had players like Pascal Siakam, Kavon Looney, Thomas Bryant, uh, Andrew Nemhard, and various others. And so I started helping them on social media, helping develop their athletes when they had brand deals with Red Bull or Aloe Yoga or whatever brand it may be, how to help them develop those brand partnerships into social media content. So I saw the need for athletes. Then I would get random clients. People would say, Hey, Aaron, uh, I saw your work at Bleach Report and loved it. Now you want to work with me. Uh, so I worked with a client called Thusio for a bit. Canopy is was a hat brand. That was this hat brand startup that I worked for a little bit as well. Things were going well. Business slowed down with the pandemic, but then the last three or four years I had to turn into an agency to where we have six people that worked for me. And now we've with over 90 clients in seven years. So quite a bit of growth and ups and downs along the way. But I I love what I get to do. It's being very creative and innovative along the way, working with some cool people as well.

Dustin Heise 12:40

I think it's inspirational too, Aaron. There's lots of opportunities to speak of, speak very highly of your mentors, but you know, as we're all seeking and we all grow as leaders, you know, it's neat to just hear folks that have been able to take a bet on themselves and leading by example, taking that step, of course, overcoming the fear and all that. So thanks for sharing that. Appreciate it, man.

Aaron Eisman 12:58

I was gonna say there's there's entrepreneurs and there's no entrepreneurs. You know, there's people that think they can do it. There's the people that think they can do it because they saw something on Shark Tank and they're like, if that guy can do it, I can make a product or whatever. And there's there's entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs. There's this to all sorts of people that some people are good being a part of a company, a Fortune 500 company, and some people want to do their own thing. And I just felt like if I could do my own thing and make it successful after one year, and my wife believes in what I can do, then and I make it happen, I make man and I pay the bills, then like why not keep doing it?

Dustin Heise 13:30

So good. And the support behind each and every one of us at home, too, just uh makes all the difference in the world. I know you have that too. Yeah. When you think about social media and how it's changed the way teams build, and especially from a culture perspective, you know, not just internally, but with their fans, how do you how do you see the the nature of you know how teams are gonna continue to build as they look ahead and try to engage and and and drive fan engagement so that the fans feel more a part of the team and that relationship between player and fan?

Aaron Eisman 13:59

Yeah, I think that's you you hit the nail on the head. You know, it's utilize your players to your advantage so that you build connections with the audience. Like everyone's gonna see, okay, I lost three to two today, or I know I'm playing tomorrow, and here's the starting lineup, and this and that. That's just baseline content, low-hanging fruit that every team has to do in a way because they have to appease the fans. But the real stuff is gonna be is gonna be storytelling, like we talked about earlier. Like LeBron James is going to a new team. Okay, why did he choose that new team? He has a connection to Cleveland or wherever the team is gonna be, whatever it may be, showing the story behind it is important as well. So I think people will start to realize, and teams have to start losing this, and ML MLB hasn't realized this because I I interviewed them a couple years ago, or seven years ago, I think it was. The talent is the greatest resource for a team. They're gonna perform well in the field and sometimes have great games and bad games and whatnot. But what's gonna sell them is those mid-day, those in-between days where they need to show a story about a player. I always found that fascinating when Vin Scully for the Dodgers would tell a story about a player, like there was maybe a gap in an inning, or and he would say, Okay, this player is from Dominican Republic, and he grew up with this or that, and and how he got involved in the sport because of this mentor of his. And I just thought that was always fascinating stuff. The storyline-driven content is fascinating to me, as well as a lot of people. And so behind the scenes, storyline-driven content, more about what more than an athlete, charity, things that these athletes get involved in, meet and greets. I think you gotta use your players to your advantage as much as possible, or else you just are the we just lost another game. Oh, it's it sucks, you know. On to the next one. And then you get just a bunch of hate comments in the in the section about how much you suck. Let's show other sides to the team, especially when it's running well.

Dustin Heise 15:50

Who do you think's best in class right now? Like who's doing an outstanding job with with maximizing the use of their players?

Aaron Eisman 15:57

I mean, I think the Chargers are number one in the country, if not the world, maybe, or or at least top ten. You know, there's other teams maybe like uh Barcelona does it well, or you know, uh uh Liverpool might do a good job enough of it. But I think in American sports, the Los Angeles Chargers, I mean, they've they've doubled down and put people in place because people are a company's greatest resource in my mind. If you like bleach report was the hottest thing in from 2015 to 2020 because we had some of the top talent in in America working for them. And you know, maybe including myself, but like a lot of people that were. So the Chargers are a great example of that. Yeah.

Dustin Heise 16:34

Is it talent-driven? Like obviously it it of course matters, but like what do they what have they chosen to do that is clearly landing and working for them that others maybe aren't?

Aaron Eisman 16:43

Aaron Powell People that create innovative ideas, ideation creation, execution of content. So can you come up with the idea and create the idea that's actually gonna execute and land with the audience that's gonna get the results you're hoping for? They don't mind doing the, you know, I think they were the ones that started doing funny schedule releases. They did a great one where they had a Harrison Butker in the kitchen because he made a comment about like, you know, against women. So like there was stuff like that. They don't mind being trolley a little bit and fun with it. I wrote in my book on sports social media called the evolution of sports social media that the Los Angeles Kings were great at it back in the day because they had a Twitter ex voice that were would come back and banter with teams and players and stuff. So that was good. But yeah, the people, the people who give access and the and the leadership team who says you can have you can have fun with it is where it's going to be headed in the future. So the Chargers are a good example of that. The Panthers, there's other teams that do a good job of it as well. But it's access to the players as well as access to the right talent to make the right ideas to execute those ideas to get the results you're hoping for. So it's all kind of it matters about the people you have and the people you have, you know, worker bees as well as the top-level people as well.

Dustin Heise 17:53

Yeah, for sure. Always leadership, for sure. Now, when you look ahead, what excites you the most about how digital communities will shape the future of sport?

Aaron Eisman 18:02

Yeah, I think it's just people consistently realizing, especially the higher ups, the people that I, you know, I used to call dinosaurs, people that are like 50 and up, like who didn't believe in social media, people start to realize it's a billion-dollar industry. It's been bubbling up to that point for years and years, and people didn't buy into it until now, and until the last couple of years, where they see TikTokers are making money. I mean, I I had a I have a TikTok friend, this Instagram friend that was making $150,000 a year, and this was six years ago. And I'm sure Mr. Beast makes millions of millions of dollars and whatnot, and all these other people make lots and lots of money. People didn't see it that way, but I saw it coming that way seven to eight years ago. Like when the better performing content for Bleacher Board was memes or talent-driven content. So I saw that kind of the shift from the brand to the athlete or to the musician or whoever the personal brand is. I saw that shift a long time ago. And I think people are starting to realize that because of how much it's turned into that. And people would rather have, instead of a C-less actor, they'd have rather A-less influencer being a part of the brand. I mean, Drewski's in T-Mobile commercials. Would he be into T-Mobile commercials five years ago or less? Probably not. But because brands have bought into the talent, they don't mind utilizing them and making shows from them and this and that. And so that's where everything's headed because you have the money to lead lead to the budget of the right influence that fits the brand narrative and that can sell more product or be more brand awareness related, whatever it may be your goals are. But the talent will help shape a brand. And, you know, maybe the brands become built off the talent, just like Prime Drinks and Mr. Beast burgers and feastables or whatever they're called. So it's all that is going to be based around talent. And talent will drive sales, and some will work better than others, I guess.

Dustin Heise 19:49

Yeah, for sure, man. Well, I know that people can always, you know, find you or reach out to you and your company and and look for ways to collaborate. But when I think back to the comment you made uh a little bit ago around the ideation, creation, execution, for those that are listening and you know, maybe haven't quite been able to do that at their company or their organization. It could be a national sport organization and be a pro sport. Where do you get started if you if you haven't already optimized or or or gone down this path completely yet? If you want to get into doing this well, doing this right, you know, and doing it on you know what budget you may think that you have.

Aaron Eisman 20:25

Where do you get started here and yeah, I think I think ultimately, I mean, you find your budget and you're build your team off of the budget you have, whether you want it's in in-house and or outsource it or put it in a different country, whatever budget you have, hire the right people to do social media, especially if you're a brand, and then utilize some of that budget towards paid social as well as influencer budget. But like the important part to what I saw at Bleach Report was we had social media programmers like myself that would post the content. We had ideation specialists that would create memes and fun stuff. We had analytics people that would look over the numbers and give us results and good feedback, bad feedback about what our content's doing. We had influencer talent or PR people that would get a get a snoopdog at Bleach Report and all these other big name talent. So have the right team in place. Don't mind to spend six figures on a social media staff per year or you know, high amid six figures, because you little lead to results. I mean, obviously, sometimes you know, you got a surfboard behind you, so you like sometimes you might see the surfboard company will build their brand up because they're young and they're up and coming, and some have established brands that everyone's gonna buy anyways. But the difference maker is the people who promote them in-house. And I would say take your time finding training and developing talent, especially if they're younger and if they're higher level and their directors are higher, make them prove themselves still. I mean, it's don't get complacent at all. That's where some organizations do, and they can't evolve from the complacency, basically.

Dustin Heise 21:55

No, for sure. I mean, we're super hungry here at Canada Snowboard. I can tell you that much. We're uh we want to continue to grow and be a leader in this world for sure. But you know, when you look ahead in one year's time, you know, where do you see yourself? Where do you see your company having going and growing? And what does success look like for you guys? And then I'm gonna ask, you know, similar question on a five-year timeline, you know, same sort of thing. Like what do you see in one year and and and in five years?

Aaron Eisman 22:20

Yeah, I think one year is realizing that you can do a lot with AI in a sense that is beneficial and non-beneficial to an organization like myself. The beneficial stuff is ideation strategy, caption writing, stuff of that nature. I'm sure people will build these tools that will. I mean, Claude and ChatGVD do a lot of these one-off type things for you, but I'm sure there's gonna be tools and automations that allow you to go from the ideation to the creation to the execution of content and give thumbs up, thumbs down if it goes out on social media. So AI will be, I mean, I'm sure you're hearing this in the conversation, will be a big part of it as well. And then five years from now, I'm not saying like staffs will get delayed because you still need some people that thumbs up and thumbs down content and captions and this and that, because someone human needs to be an element behind that. But um, I think people, jobs will change and people, and I might not I might not need as big of a staff in the future, but I might get more clients at different rates because I have a good team, but I don't have the massive team that I I need. So because AI will automate some of that, but the creator economy will continue to grow. I want to dive deeper into that. In the next five years, I want to have maybe influencers and creators that work for me or or that are part of brands that work for us. And then um, you know, people have talked about injecting more money into my business so that we can offer more services and hire specific talents for specific needs. So that might be an advantageous too, but AI will be a part of it, creator economy, selling stuff. You still need some human elements behind it. And I think some brands will lack that because they'll go all out on AI. Sure. And some brands will kind of mix and match and say we need some AI and some people, but the winners will obviously still have people as a greatest resource of a company because AI can do so much, but at the end of the day, a human needs to be behind it to make sure the ship is heading in the right direction, basically.

Dustin Heise 24:12

Spot on, man. Aaron, can't thank you enough for your time today. What a great chat. Thank you so much, my friend.

Aaron Eisman 24:19

Thank you, Dustin. I appreciate the time. Thanks for having me.

Dustin Heise 24:21

Really appreciate it.