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RILEYCATALANO.COM / Social Media Marketing and Management

Audiences That Come Back

Social Media Marketingand Management

I build social media strategy, content, and community around each brand's real goals, not a one-size template. From organic engagement that turns into UGC programs to platform-specific strategy for local and B2B audiences, the work is built to make people follow, stay, and come back.

Campaign Development Community Management UGC Programs Content Scheduling Social Analytics A/B Testing

Capabilities

How I Run Social

Social media is where people decide whether a brand is worth trusting before they ever pick up the phone. My approach treats every platform as a relationship, not a broadcast channel. That means strategy comes first, content is built to stop the scroll, and every post is scheduled, monitored, and measured on purpose.

I have run this end to end for ABI Attachments, Favze Digital Marketing, and HR Collaboration Group, three completely different audiences that each needed a different voice, a different platform mix, and a different definition of success.

I connect design and strategy directly. When a brand provides photos or raw footage, I build the content calendar, captions, and posting cadence around what is actually available, rather than forcing a plan that requires assets no one has time to shoot.

Every caption is also written for a second audience: AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, which increasingly decide what gets surfaced when someone searches for a business, a service, or a recommendation.

Strategy & Campaign Development
Audience research, platform selection, content pillars, and campaign concepts built around each brand's actual goals, from local trust-building to B2B pipeline.
Content Design & Captions
Posts, carousels, and reels built from provided photos or shot fresh, paired with captions written for both human readers and AI answer engines.
Strategic Scheduling & Publishing
Posting timed to when each audience is actually online, using platform data, day-of-week patterns, and continuous testing rather than guesswork.
Community Management & Engagement
Daily monitoring, real responses to every comment and message, and proactive engagement with the exact people a brand wants watching. This is the discipline that turned into Groundbreakers.
Social Media Analytics & Reporting
Reporting past vanity metrics into reach, engagement, follower quality, and conversion, tied back to what each brand actually cares about.
A/B Testing
Testing hooks, formats, posting times, and captions against real performance data to find what an audience wants, not what I assume they want.

Strategic Posting Times

Post When Your People Are Actually There

A great post at the wrong hour still underperforms. Before anything goes live, I pull each account's own analytics to find when its specific followers and fans are actually online, since a local Michiana audience and a B2B HR audience do not scroll at the same time or on the same days.

Posting schedules get built around that data, not a generic best-practices chart, and get re-checked regularly since audience behavior shifts as a page grows.

This is also where consistency compounds. Showing up in the same windows, on the same days, trains an algorithm and an audience at the same time. Followers start to expect the post, and the platform starts to expect the engagement, which is what turns a single good post into a pattern of good reach.

Low activity Building activity Peak window, post here
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
8 AM
12 PM
5 PM
8 PM

Illustrative pattern. Actual posting windows are pulled fresh from each account's own audience data and adjusted as it changes.


Signature Campaign

From Organic Engagement to a Campaign Concept

Case Study · ABI Attachments

Groundbreakers

Groundbreakers started as community management, not a campaign. While running ABI Attachments' YouTube presence, I consistently showed up in the comments, engaging with real conversations instead of posting and disappearing. That consistency was enough for two YouTubers to start creating content featuring ABI equipment entirely on their own, unpaid and unprompted, simply because the engagement made them want to.

That result was the proof of concept. It showed that real engagement could generate content a paid campaign couldn't buy, which is exactly where the idea for Groundbreakers came from. From there, I pitched it as a structured user-generated content program built around that same principle: motivating customers to create how-to videos, reviews, and jobsite content for free, with no payment or incentive involved, turning authentic customer stories into trust signals that improve both search and AI-driven visibility.

My role was the YouTube community engagement itself and the free, unpaid UGC campaign concept it led to. It is one of the campaigns I am proudest of pitching, built entirely on the idea that community management done right becomes its own content engine.

2
YouTubers Created Content for Free, Before Groundbreakers Existed
1
Platform (YouTube) Where I Ran Community Engagement
$0
Paid to Creators, By Design

Funnel Content

Content Built for Every Stage

TOFU MOFU BOFU

Not every post should ask for the sale. A feed needs content for someone who has never heard of the brand, someone who is comparing options, and someone who is ready to book. This is especially true for a B2B lead generation business like HR Collaboration Group, where the buyer is a decision-maker, not an impulse follower.

The funnel has three distinct layers, awareness, consideration, and decision, and each one needs its own content, its own tone, and its own goal. Below is an example of how one piece of content maps to each layer for HRC, moving an HR leader from first exposure to a booked consultation.

Top of Funnel · Awareness
LinkedIn Carousel
"5 Signs Your Turnover Problem Is Actually a Hiring Problem"

An educational, no-pitch carousel breaking down common hiring mistakes that quietly drive turnover. Built to be shared and saved by HR leaders who don't know HRC yet.

Middle of Funnel · Consideration
Case Study Post
"How a Northern Indiana Manufacturer Cut Time-to-Hire by 40%"

A results-driven post with a real number and a real problem, aimed at HR leaders actively comparing options and looking for proof HRC can deliver.

Bottom of Funnel · Decision
Direct CTA Post
"Book Your Free HR Audit Before the Month Ends"

A short, direct offer with a clear next step and a deadline, aimed at the HR leader who is already sold on the problem and just needs a reason to act now.


Brand Strategy

Two Brands, Two Very Different Playbooks

Favze Digital Marketing
Local · Affordable Digital Marketing Agency

Favze is newer to the market, local, and priced to be accessible, which means the social strategy has one job before anything else: make the brand look established.

Content leans educational, breaking down SEO, AEO, GEO, and AI search in plain language so followers see expertise, not just a logo. Every post is also written with AI answer engines in mind, since a big part of Favze's own positioning is helping businesses show up correctly in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. That means Favze's social content has to practice what it sells.

Community engagement runs alongside the content, not after it. Responding, commenting, and showing up consistently is what makes a small local agency read as a credible, active one.

Educational Content AI-Answer Optimization Credibility Building Community Engagement
HR Collaboration Group
B2B Lead Generation · HR & Recruiting Agency

HRC is not chasing followers for their own sake. It is a B2B lead generation business, so social strategy is built around reaching the people who make hiring, compliance, and workforce decisions, and moving them toward a consultation.

Content is positioned as thought leadership: workforce strategy, turnover, compliance, and leadership development, aimed at business owners and HR leaders rather than a general audience. LinkedIn carries the weight of this strategy since it is where the actual buyers are.

Every post connects back to HRC's nine service lines, so social media functions as a top-of-funnel channel feeding directly into the sales pipeline, not a standalone brand exercise.

Thought Leadership LinkedIn-First Pipeline Generation B2B Positioning
What Actually Happened
Before
HR stats post
5
Views, 2 Likes, Both From Me
After
Recruiting job postings
5x
More Views Than the Prior Best Post

The audience wasn't looking for HR statistics. They were looking for open jobs. Once I started posting HRC's own recruiting openings, engagement jumped immediately. People were showing up because they wanted a job from us, and because the content actually meant something to them, they engaged, real proof that strategy has to follow what an audience actually wants, not just what looks professional. That engagement didn't stop with the people who saw it first either. On LinkedIn, every like or comment pushes a post into that person's own network, so the more people genuinely engaged, the further the post traveled on its own.


Signature Series

Content Built to Be Followed, Not Just Seen

Getting a follow is easy. Getting someone to come back is the actual job. I build recurring content formats for each brand, series with a consistent hook style and rhythm, so an audience learns to expect and look for the next one.

These formats are also where I run most of my testing, since a repeating series gives a clean, consistent way to measure what is actually working over time instead of judging a single post in isolation.

SIGNATURE FORMAT
Shocking Hooks
The first slide, frame, or line of every carousel and reel is written to stop the scroll on purpose, increasing completion rate so the post reaches more homes beyond the original follower base.
SIGNATURE FORMAT
The Hot Take
A recurring opinion-led post format that gives each brand a point of view instead of a neutral feed, built to spark comments and repeat visits from people waiting for the next take.
SIGNATURE FORMAT
Dual-Audience Captions
Captions written to read naturally for a human scrolling their feed while staying structured enough for AI platforms to understand, cite, and surface the content in an answer.

Captions, My Style

I Write for Two Readers at Once

Most people write a caption for the person scrolling. I write it for that person and for the AI model that might be asked the same question later. A caption is not just a caption anymore, it is a small answer sitting in public, waiting to be pulled into a ChatGPT response, a Perplexity result, or a Google AI Overview.

My go-to move is the question-based caption. Opening with the exact question a real person would type into an AI search box mirrors the language those models are already matching against, so the post has a real shot at getting surfaced as the answer. It works every time I use it well, because it is not a trick, it is just writing the caption in the same words the question already exists in.

Favze Digital Marketing
"Why do some local businesses show up in ChatGPT and Google's AI answers, and some don't?"

It usually comes down to three things: structured content, clear local signals, and a Google Business Profile that is actually being maintained. Here's what we check first for every client.

Why it works: This is close to the exact phrase a business owner types into an AI tool when they're confused about visibility, so the caption is speaking the question's own language.
HR Collaboration Group
"What is actually costing you more, turnover or a bad hire?"

Most business owners assume turnover is the expensive problem. The math usually says otherwise. Here's how to actually compare the two before your next hiring decision.

Why it works: It's framed as a direct comparison question, the same shape HR leaders use when they ask an AI assistant to help them think through a decision.
ABI Attachments · Groundbreakers
"What's the one attachment that saved your day on the jobsite?"

Drop it in the comments or tag us in your footage. We're featuring real answers from real operators all season.

Why it works: A direct question to the audience drives comments and UGC submissions, the exact behavior that built Groundbreakers in the first place.

Landing Pages

Every Campaign Needs Its Own Front Door

A post that performs well and then sends people to a generic homepage is leaving results on the table. I build a dedicated landing page for every real campaign, not just a link in bio pointing to the same place every time.

When the message on the post matches the message on the page word for word, people know they landed in the right place, and they convert instead of bouncing. I've built this exact approach into Favze's own paid social ads page, where every section speaks directly to the offer that brought someone there.

01Message match: the page headline mirrors the post or ad that drove the click.
02One goal, one CTA: no nav distractions pulling attention away from the action.
03Built for the traffic source: mobile-first for social, fast-loading, thumb-friendly.
04Tracked independently: performance is tied back to that specific campaign, not blended into general site traffic.

Testing & Optimization

Proven Through Testing, Not Assumptions

I run A/B tests on hooks, formats, captions, and posting times to find what an audience actually responds to, rather than guessing based on what worked somewhere else. Every test has a clear winner and a clear reason, and that reason feeds directly into the next round of content.

Version A
38%
Version B
71%

FAQ

Ask Me Anything

What is Groundbreakers?
Groundbreakers is a user-generated content campaign concept I pitched for ABI Attachments, grown out of community engagement I ran on their YouTube channel. Before Groundbreakers existed, consistent, genuine interaction led two YouTubers to start posting content featuring ABI equipment on their own, unpaid and unasked. That result became the proof of concept for a structured program built around that same idea: motivating customers to create how-to videos, reviews, and jobsite content for free, with no payment or incentive involved, building trust and improving visibility across search and AI platforms.
How is Favze's social strategy different from HR Collaboration Group's?
Favze's strategy is built around credibility. As a newer, local, affordable agency, the goal is to look established through educational content and AI-answer-ready posts. HR Collaboration Group is a B2B lead generation business, so its strategy is built around authority and pipeline, reaching HR leaders and business owners through thought leadership that moves them toward a consultation.
Do you need brand photos to create content?
No, but they help. If a brand already has photos or footage, I build the content plan around those assets. If not, I plan and source what's needed to keep the calendar consistent.
Do you write captions for AI or for people?
Both. Every caption is written to read naturally for someone scrolling their feed, while also being structured so AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews can understand and surface it.

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