When Thierry Henry retired last year, the New York Red Bulls lost not only one of MLS’s more skilled players, but also his more than 1.5 million social media followers.
Two months later, just a few weeks before the start of the 2015 season, Tim Cahill’s contract was mutually voided. While Cahill wasn’t as entrenched in social media as Henry, he did have a global following in his own right as another Red Bulls designated player and a current Australian national team player.
The loss of the two players together meant New York’s social media staff had to find a new approach for doing business in 2015 — not unlike how the team’s coaching staff was having to develop a new game plan for the pitch.
“We knew if Thierry retweeted something or posted a link on his Facebook page, it immediately was going to get a lot of coverage,” said Joe
Stetson, vice president of marketing and communications with the club, who oversees all of the Red Bulls’ multimedia and content operations and its 20 staffers. “There certainly was a concern from a social and digital standpoint that we’d have a big drop-off.”
But just as a new, more team-centric playing style has put the club within striking distance of first place in the Eastern Conference, that same kind of approach has led
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The New York Red Bulls are active on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
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to a boon for the club’s digital and social platforms.
“One of the great things about having really big, bold-face, name players is that they have so much history, both on and off the field, so it’s natural that a lot of the content revolves around that,” said Molly Brady, the Red Bulls’ social media manager. “So when we started to plan for this year, it was the complete opposite. We wanted to go back and focus on the storylines that were organically coming from the pitch.”
The change began in the preseason, when the club’s digital team made sure it was capturing every moment of training camp, workouts and scrimmages in a variety of formats — video for the Web, but also short clips aimed more at social media — a depth of content the club hadn’t had before.
“In the years past, we often relied on putting out less and expecting more,” said Scott Sandalow, the team’s digital media manager. “Rather than just be content that there was going to be a drop, we took it as a challenge to work harder.”
The team began experimenting with new social platforms, as well. Portions of training sessions now are being broadcast on Periscope. Postgame and after-practice audio is offered on SoundCloud. Rather than continue to purchase time on an ESPN Radio affiliate, radio broadcasts are now being streamed on the club’s website in both English and Spanish, a feature that has been expanded even further in the last few weeks with a partnership with online radio software outfit TuneIn. There also is a new online digital magazine called Red Bull Insider that features three 20-minute video segments that will be produced roughly once per month.
The approach has paid off. Compared to last year at this time, the club has seen a 21 percent increase in unique users of its website and a 35 percent increase in total page views. Red Bulls-produced video content has nearly 3 million total views, a number it took the entire 2014 season to reach. Social media also has seen a bump, with a more than 7 percent increase in total followers and more than 2 million engagements, according to team tracking.
The end result: The Red Bulls have been able to maintain their traditional spot in the top third leaguewide for digital metrics.
The numbers have aided sponsorship development as well. The club pointed to digital as playing a role in securing two of the club’s newest sponsors, Yanmar and Bayer, both signed earlier this year.
Sandalow, Brady and Stetson all credited the club’s digital team for the developments seen, but they also credited the Red Bulls’ sporting director, Ali Curtis, and coach Jesse Marsch for willingly providing access. “With Ali working for MLS for many years, and Jesse being involved with the league’s website during the 2014 World Cup, they both understand the business side of added content like this, as well as how much fans enjoy it,” Stetson said.
