Most cola and energy drink companies began with a product-forward attitude. But from the get-go, Red Bull made it all about a certain mindset. Founded in 1987 by Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull takes inspiration (and its name) from the Thai drink Krating Daeng.
Kratin Daeng was marketed toward the more rough-and-tough truckers and workers. But Mateschitz positioned Red Bull as a premium drink to be enjoyed among ‘trendier’ circles.
Today, Red Bull is the most popular energy drink worldwide and enjoys a 39.5% market share. Plus, it has expanded into proprietary adventure sports, racing, and music. Each of these enterprises is wildly successful and has millions of followers online, thanks to Red Bull’s marketing strategy.
This blog closely examines Red Bull’s social media strategy and how it keeps the brand ahead of its competition.
Analyzing Red Bull’s social media accounts
As this blog’s title attests, the first thing you think of when you hear ‘Red Bull’ is the now timeless slogan ‘Gives You Wings.’ It is precisely the intent behind Red Bull’s marketing strategy — to embed itself in people’s psyche as an exhilarating and fun-filled drink that can help you do anything.
All Red Bull social media accounts are active and filled with engaging content. True to the mindset it champions, the brand is not afraid to experiment with different content formats or modes of dissemination.
Unsurprisingly, Red Bull’s online follower count seems to be as infused with energy as the drink itself.
Here’s the total followers on Red Bull’s main social media accounts.
- Instagram: 19.1 million
- Facebook: 49 million
- YouTube: 13.6 million
- Twitter: 1.9 million
- LinkedIn: 1 million
- TikTok: 10.9 million
- Reddit: 14K
Apart from these, Red Bull also has many regional and enterprise-specific accounts, all with large follower bases. Here are a few examples:
- Oracle Red Bull Racing on Twitter: 4.5 million
- Red Bull Racing on Instagram: 11.2 million
- Red Bull Brazil on Instagram: 1.8 million
- Red Bull USA on Instagram: 934K
So, how does Red Bull draw these many followers online? Let’s take a deeper gulp of Red Bull’s social media strategy.
The magic recipe behind Red Bull’s marketing strategy
From creating one of the most popular taglines to making adventure lifestyle into an empire, Red Bull made it a point to stand out from traditional marketing with its every move.
Instead of choosing mass-media campaigns, Red Bull used cartoon characters for their ads. Here the aim wasn’t to entice customers but to amuse them and pique their interest.
This is just one tiny element of the beverage brand’s unique, creative, and strategic marketing brilliance. Want to know the main ingredients in Red Bull’s successful social media brew? Read on.
1. Using intriguing user-generated content
If used correctly, user-generated content (UGC) can be an excellent boon to brand authenticity, enhanced engagement, and a higher conversion rate. This is something Red Bull realized and integrated into its marketing early on.
Red Bull’s target audience is an active and passionate crowd. The brand leverages this and encourages UGC by hosting events and competitions related to extreme sports, gaming, and more.
Fans and followers share their extreme sports and adventure experiences with Red Bull by tagging the brand’s social handles and using branded hashtags. The brand then curates and posts the best ones on its social channels. These act as social proof and testaments to Red Bull’s impact on its audience.
Featuring UGC regularly also gives fans the chance to share the spotlight, boosting brand advocacy and engaging a wider audience.
For example, Red Bull posts user-generated content like the above YouTube short on their channel. These UGCs have a sense of drama and hook your attention.
2. Dipping into memes and current trends
Ideal for quick consumption, memes, and trend-based content have surpassed being mere funny bits into valuable marketing materials for brands. Red Bull is one such brand that uses memes and viral trends and creates on-brand content style and brand image.
The brand started partnering with popular meme accounts on Instagram in 2016. This was a genius move as it expanded their fan base even further. Red Bull then started creating their own memes featuring popular popular characters from movies, TV shows, and video games. The brand also blends current trends into its memes and other content formats that go viral quickly.
3. Building a culture of adventure and adrenalin
The beverage market is quite crowded. So, what part of Red Bull’s marketing really differentiated their brand? Their unconventional strategy of sponsoring extreme sports and adventures to capture the youthful adrenaline junkie crowd.
Red Bull collaborates with extreme sports athletes and organizes various competitive events. The brand built a culture around adventure sports, from Red Bull Air Race to Red Bull Art of Motion.
The brand even has a media production company through which it creates interesting adrenaline-fueled content around its sponsored adventure and sports events.
Every sport they are involved with has separate and active social media channels that publish these content pieces regularly. In fact, Red Bull’s in-house media machine curates content in six languages, covering 600 sports events, documentaries, scripted series, and feature films.
4. Actively interacting with audiences
Besides posting interesting content, Red Bull’s social media strategy nurtures the brand’s relationships with fans and followers through real-time interactions. They respond to comments, UGCs, and questions actively. This facilitates personal connection with the audience and cultivates engagement and loyalty.
For example, Red Bull posted the above image through one of their Twitter handles. It generated a plethora of memes from the audience in the comment section.
The brand turned it into an opportunity to interact and build connections with the audience through their shared love for memes.
5. Partnering with celebrities, athletes, and sportspersons
Red Bull has strategically partnered with influencers, celebrities, and sports personalities to leverage their influence in sports, music, and lifestyle industries. It allows the brand to take advantage of the influencer’s credibility in the space and extend its reach to its specific fan bases.
Red Bull’s notable celebrity partnerships include:
- Eminem: Rapper
- Shaun White: Professional snowboarder and skateboarder
- Sam Smith: Musician
- Sebastian Vettel: Racer
- Gurpreet Singh Sandhu: Indian football player
Red Bull sponsors a racing team called Oracle Red Bull Racing that competes in Formula 1 races. Red Bull also manages separate social media handles for the team. The team boasts a whopping 11.2 million Instagram followers and 1.61 million YouTube subscribers.
6. Keeping it premium but humorously relatable
Red Bull’s social media marketing and advertisements are high-quality, premium, and hep, but still retain their humorous side. Besides exhilarating adventure videos, the brand doesn’t shy away from experimenting with odd or crass humor to keep it relatable and engaging for the masses.
For example, the above ad is a classic example of Red Bull’s “poopy” humor where the bird takes a dump on a person’s head, and well… we know how that turns out.
7. Leveraging different post formats and styles
Red Bull never confined its marketing to a set of specific formats. The brand’s creative flexibility across different content styles allows it to reach a diverse audience across different platforms.
They run their signature animated ads as TV and social media commercials and create breathtaking documentaries and YouTube shorts on real-life adventures. Red Bull also posts behind-the-scenes on their Twitter and Instagram accounts.
On their Instagram handles, Red Bull posts trendy reels and challenges featuring their athlete partners. For example, in the above reel, motorsport racer Max Verstappen participates in a fun game of guessing the track start blindfolded.
8. Creating engaging videos in different genres
Red Bull’s content marketing strategy isn’t just about creating quality videos but experiences. From infotainment videos to fascinating adventure documentaries, the brand ensures the audience remembers what Red Bull is about.
On its social media, you get tons of event visuals, races, and interviews with favorite celebrities and sports personalities. In short, there is no lack of thrill and fun in Red Bull’s marketing videos.
For example, Red Bull creates 360° interactive videos of their sports events.
An inside look into Red Bull’s social media strategy
Red Bull has established itself as the energy drink of our times and made itself synonymous with a lifestyle of adventure, sports, and excitement. The brand has a strong presence across all social media platforms and a surplus of fans and followers.
Let’s peek into how this manifests in terms of user engagement.
1. Red Bull on Instagram
We tracked Red Bull’s Instagram performance from 2nd October to 25th December, and it’s evident that their holistic marketing strategy drove some impressive numbers. The brand published 108 posts and got an average engagement of 150,810. And this was Red Bull’s top Instagram post in the past 3 months.
Their most frequent post type on Instagram is reels (98%), and rightly so since they get an average engagement of 165,186. They post carousels 2% of the time, which brings them an average of 133,041 engagements per post.
2. Red Bull on YouTube
In the same period, Red Bull posted 71 videos on YouTube which generated 467,321,025 views, 14,598,778 likes, and 94,046 comments.
The above are the top-performing videos on Red Bull’s YouTube channel.
3. Red Bull on Facebook
Red Bull’s marketing activities on Facebook included 66 posts from 2nd October to 25th December, which drove 2,620 average engagement per post.
The brand mostly posts marketing videos on Facebook. Only about 3% of the posts are photos and links.
4. Red Bull on Twitter
We analyzed Red Bull’s Twitter activities for the past year. 86% of their posts on the platform were text-based.
However, the most engaging media type for Red Bull’s Twitter presence has been photos.
Use profile analytics and market research to soar above the competition
Every piece of Red Bull’s marketing strategy fits seamlessly with each other — and that’s exactly why it became much more than a beverage brand. It’s creative enough to help the brand stand out and strategic enough to sustain it in the long run.
Want to achieve the nuance and success of Red Bull’s marketing strategy? Besides some stellar creative minds and out-of-the-box ideas, you have to be on top of your performance on social media.
For that, you need a reliable, simple, and accurate analytics tool like Keyhole. Here, you will get real-time data on your performance across all major social media platforms. It also lets you benchmark competitors, suggest the right hashtags, and keep track of every relevant trend. You can also track the best influencers for your brand and monitor their performance on your campaigns.
Want Red Bull’s marketing wings for your company as well?
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Frequently Asked Questions
1. How does Red Bull leverage social media platforms for its marketing strategy?
Red Bull strategically utilizes various social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube to engage its audience. It focuses on storytelling, experiments with Instagram Reels, and creates dedicated content for each short-form video platform. By leveraging the unique features of each platform, Red Bull effectively reaches and resonates with its diverse audiences.
2. What makes Red Bull's social media content strategy stand out from others?
Red Bull stands out for its "brands as publishers" approach, producing its own media content. It has seen success by creating engaging and exciting content that aligns with its brand image. From thrilling extreme sports videos to fascinating stories, Red Bull's content strategy captivates its audience and nurtures a community of loyal fans.
3. How has Red Bull become a marketing powerhouse through its social media strategy?
Red Bull's success lies in its innovative and energizing marketing approach. It has become one of the world's most popular energy drink brands by creating a category-creating brand and consistently delivering captivating content on social media. Red Bull's strategy involves a combination of unique content creation, experiential marketing, and aligning with extreme sports, which has elevated its brand presence and engagement.
