The Process of the New York Red Bulls Viral Post

In the 11 years of working in sports social media, people have asked me time and time again, “How do you go viral?” There is no simple answer to that question.

Listen, things we thought were not going to go viral at Bleacher Report ended up going viral. Also, things we “knew” would go viral, ended up not going viral. There was this concept with the Bleacher Report social moments team called “going vi”. “Vi” means viral of course. People on that team were constantly competitive with each other from what I heard.

These days going viral on Instagram isn’t easy unless you have a lot of followers. That will give you a kickstart. Plus, the piece of content has to be shareable (relying on DMing of the content) and collabing with other accounts of a substantial following too.

This week’s newsletter is all about the process of how one video went viral for the New York Red Bulls and its impact on their organization.

I got a chance to talk to Red Bulls Senior Manager, Brand and Content Jordan Rabinowitz. Jordan and I go way back to my Bleacher Report days, even played each other in a one-on-one game of basketball and had many other memories too.

So what’s the process behind this viral post?

First, Video Producer Kris Wan captured a moment where each of the Red Bulls players started giving their jackets to the young soccer fans standing in front of them as the rain poured down in Red Bull Arena.

Wan recorded the video and sent it into the Red Bulls Microsoft Teams communication system. Right after the game was over, Jordan and his team looked through the video channel for post-game clips to post. Jordan said that postgame his team is always looking for “storytelling moments” and this was it. “What’s behind the white lines?” as he told me.

Next, Brand and Content Manager Mariana S. Ruiz González posted this clip with the caption “We’re not crying, you are 🥹” From my experience, this is the perfect caption to sum up the video. Rabinowitz said “post it everywhere” and collabing with the MLS and that’s what González did.

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What happened next was incredible! This ended up being the Red Bulls best performing post ever. Here are the analytics:

Instagram: Nearly 400K likes, over 4K comments and an outstanding 6.1 Million views. Also on TikTok, they recorded another 416K views.

Rabinowitz’s mom even called him to tell him that this video was on The Today Show.

The next day around the Red Bulls office was buzzing with joy and excitement. “Everybody from the coordinators to the higher-ups were hyped.” Rabinowitz said that there was “a lot of pride and enthusiasm” around the office too.

It all comes down to the creative eye of Wan capturing the moment, Rabinowitz giving the go-ahead to post and González coming up with the caption and posting the video. A total team effort on all parts.

"Can’t miss moments like this. You gotta be at the right place at the right times,” Rabinowitz said.

This is certainly a moment that Rabinowitz and his team will never forget. It’s one of the best moments of the MLS season so far and there’s still a lot of games left in the season.

I’m excited to see what the Red Bulls post in the future. Rabinowitz and his team got many of new followers that week, including one from yours truly.

Best of luck this season, Red Bulls!