How Red Bull Fuels Its Facebook Community With Winning Content

This post is part of the Killer Facebook Pages Series, which highlights the top brand pages on Facebook and provides tips on how to emulate their successes.

With quality content flowing from top brands, it’s no surprise that energy drink company Red Bull also has its own media media company to fuel its content strategy. With so much support from a dedicated content team, one of its winning online properties is its Facebook Page. With more than 26.7 million “Likes,” Red Bull’s Facebook Page ranks in the top 50 branded pages on the world’s largest social network.

Red Bull‘s social media team relies mostly on engagement metrics to measure success, and that, it has in spades.

Red Bull’s Winning Content

Red Bull is a sponsor of athletes in various extreme sports. Its focal marketing message, “Gives You Wings,” fits well with visual content of athletes flying through the air on bikes or snowboards.

The brand’s most popular posts are extreme sports videos and photos, sometimes garnering thousands of re-shares onto the personal Facebook profiles of its fans. Many, but not all of these videos are of Red Bull’s own sponsored athletes.

Keeping Messaging Simple

Red Bull stays true to its tagline, “Gives You Wings,” across all of the social platforms it uses.

We were surprised to see a hashtag for #GivesYouWings show up on the brand’s main Facebook Page. But it turns out it’s something the brand is seeing used by consumers on Facebook, although it may have little value on the platform. In fact, a Red Bull spokesperson explained that the company has seen hashtags translate well across many platforms — Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest.

“Seeing the tagline used frequently and organically as a hashtag by consumers was an inspiration to make #GivesYouWings a focal point of our ongoing ‘World of Red Bull — Get Your Wings at Launchpad’ campaign,” the spokesperson explained. The effort enables Red Bull’s community to vote on user-generated video submissions focused around big ideas of any kind, and ultimately, Red Bull will make one person’s big idea a reality.

Learning From Red Bull’s Success

What makes a brand stand out on Facebook is how it transforms an audience into a community. Red Bull’s unique content reflects who it is as a media company and always focuses on its core message, making its posts shareable and bringing fans back for more.

There are a few tips that could help brands emulate Red Bull’s success on Facebook.

• Keep messaging simple. Brands should choose one central message that ties its online and even offline efforts. Red Bull keeps its messaging simple with its “Gives You Wings” tagline. Other brands should do the same — after all, consumers are bombarded with messages all day long. Keep yours top of mind by making it simple and easy to remember and relate to.
• Utilize your company’s strengths. A brand should always play to its strengths by utilizing resources or connections its company has. Red Bull, for example, uses the recommendations of its athletes to choose the videos it posts. This insider’s perspective is not lost on fans.
• Give fans what they want. Always keep an eye on what is resonating with the audience and use that information to your advantage. Every engagement tactic deserves some play time, but focus resources on the ones that really resonate with readers.