Today’s business world has become so competitive that even the largest and most recognized corporations are fueling their marketing departments in hopes of maintaining a prominent image in the forefront of the economy and expanding their following. Social media marketing has become one of the main focuses and driving forces of companies that currently have successful marketing plans. Red Bull is a company that has integrated multiple different platforms of social media into their core marketing strategy. A case study written earlier in 2013 argues that the Red Bull brand was built almost entirely on social media through the different uses of these various social media platforms.
Red Bull uses Facebook as a primary area for social media marketing. Their main Facebook page has almost 40 million fans and has other pages dedicated to their other events and sponsored activities such as the Red Bull Stratos Balloon Jump, which alone has close to a million fans. The way Red Bull chooses to manage its Facebook page is by marketing their brand as an entire lifestyle rather than simply as a product to buy. Their posts are usually about extreme sports and their sponsored athletes, aiming to provide their fans with interesting, exciting and compelling posts in hopes of receiving maximum attention and exposure. Each of Red Bull’s few daily posts get thousands of likes, comments and shares. Despite the exposure Red Bull is getting through this marketing strategy via Facebook, they have chosen to no respond to their customer comments on Facebook like other major companies have started to do. This demonstrates how Red Bull views Facebook purely as a way of marketing their lifestyle rather than using social media to focus on customer service and relations. They have also integrated almost all aspects of their company into their Facebook page including Red Bull TV, links that redirect you to their website and corporate pages for career opportunities and detailed information on their sponsored athletes with links to their personal Twitter accounts. Their marketing campaign uses Facebook to promote their lifestyle and create a Red Bull family with their athletes, activities and consumers.
Similar to their marketing approach with Facebook, Red Bell has many different Twitter accounts that cater to different areas and events of the company as well as different areas of the world. Their main account has over 1 million followers and focuses on marketing their company, events and products as well as customer interaction. Red Bull extends their social media marketing beyond Facebook and Twitter and also keeps updated profiles on both Pinterest and Google+. They have a couple of different accounts on Pinterest that focus on exciting and captivating images that link directly to Red Bull sites. They have also used Pinterest for a marketing campaign that involves a photography competition for its fans and followers. Red Bull also maintains various accounts on Google+, its main account having over 2 million followers and posting content similar to their posts on Facebook, and also gaining quite a lot of attention.
Lessons For Others
Red Bull has demonstrated how to spread a marketing strategy and campaign over various different platforms of social media to be ubiquitously effective. They have different functions for their different social accounts that are prime examples of how to use forms of social media to maximize exposure and expand fan base as well as consumer markets. By posting interesting and exciting articles on some platforms and integrating consumer responses into others, Red Bull has given us insight into their strategy for building a brand through social media marketing.
Web References
- Econsultancy Digital Marketing Experience
- Google+
- Wikipedia
- YouTube
- Red Bull TV
- Red Bull
Submitted By: Aryana Heit, SMBP Student, University of Waterloo
To contact the author of this entry please email at: aryanaeheit@gmail.com
If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Programme Director, Social Media for Business Performance.