Setting The Standard

When I joined the Milwaukee Brewers, I inherited social channels with poor engagement rates and bottom-tier league rankings across X, Instagram, and Facebook. Once I established myself in my role and understood its challenges, I set out to transform these channels into a model for the rest of MLB. I took on the task of developing and implementing a data-driven post optimization strategy that could identify what truly resonated with our audience while avoiding practices that would put us at odds with platform algorithms to ensure content had the best chance to perform organically.
 

I began by forming hypotheses around controllable factors that might influence post performance, like aspect ratio, featured players, post type. To test my theories, I created a detailed post tagging program where I, along with interns and other team members, tracked up to 20 distinct attributes for all @Brewers posts. This included simple tags like content dimensions (16x9, 1x1, 4x5, 9x16) and more complex elements like which players appeared. Once the tagging program was in place, I used these aspects in posts to build large, well-defined sample sets for testing each of my hypotheses. I also made it a priority to educate colleagues on the social team and in the creative services department about incorporating these tracked elements into the content they created or posted to ensure a significant and consistent sample would be available for analysis. Despite initial resistance to changing established processes and skepticism about the value of such detailed tracking, I was able to secure buy-in by showing early data insights and explaining how this approach would make everyone's content more effective.
 

Using various analytics tools, I analyzed this rich dataset for each variable. One notable example: I suspected that posts with wide-dimension content on Instagram were underperforming compared to posts with square content. After collecting and comparing performance data, I found that square content posts received 18% higher engagement and 35% higher video views than otherwise identical wide posts, which led to the adoption of a strong preference for square content on Instagram. Through this process, I learned the value of embracing small failures since even incorrect hypotheses provided insights essential to uncovering the strategies that drove our greatest successes.
 

Implemented in 2018, these adjustments, combined with consistent effort, endless creativity, and collaboration across the organization, created a snowball effect that, when compared to our 2016 baseline, led to dramatic engagement growth: X up 1,770% (30th to 4th in MLB), Instagram up 1,067% (30th to 1st), and Facebook up 260% (28th to 3rd). This success was recognized by MLB, which referred to the Brewers as their “gold standard” for social media performance. The system I developed became a foundation for ongoing strategy refinement and sustained top-tier performance across baseball. Beyond the numbers, this growth strengthened our connection with fans, boosted sponsor visibility, and repositioned the Brewers’ brand as one of the most innovative in MLB.