Ole Red is a partnership between Opry Entertainment Group and Blake Shelton. Ole Red opened their first location in Blake’s hometown of Tishomingo, OK in 2017. The brand has since expanded to locations in Nashville (on Broadway), Gatlinburg, Orlando, and Las Vegas. I began managing the social media for the brand in February of 2020. Under my leadership, I developed an omni-channel social media strategy that included developing “brand channels” (Instagram, TikTok, Twitter/X) with national appeal, development of “localized” Facebook pages that highlight the uniqueness of locations while creating uniformity across the channels for the brand, and the creation of dynamic live event and grand opening strategies that drove above average audience acquisition, engagement and brand awareness.

After launching Ole Red’s TikTok in January of 2024, and continuing to innovate on Instagram, there was opportunity to maximize the views we were getting on our content. As social media was shifting to capture more “moments” vs. produced video content that combined multiple clips, there was an apparent opportunity to document more moments happening inside and outside of the bar and really do core brand building on social media.

The biggest shift I made in the strategy, was employing “cover text strategy” which captured the hook of the video in the cover text. The idea was someone who is scrolling and getting served Ole Red’s content will ultimately want to visit the profiles themselves and watch other content. The cover text pulls them in and piques their interest to click specific videos. This strategy helped increase view counts across both platforms and also increased engagement and grew followers, too. This helped Ole Red become the most-followed Broadway bar on Instagram AND TikTok.

Managing social media that has “localized” channels and “brand” channels that span from local to national audiences presented the chance to employ brand storytelling that is customized to each channel and audience. From partnering with the local marketing managers for each location to setting up and running content shoots, the strategy was to tell the story of the brand while also driving intent to visit across each location.

I was very cognizant about creating content for each of the “localized” channels that highlighted different parts of the locations - from unique backdrops to special menu items, to exclusive giveaways that drive audience growth across multiple channels. Creating cohesive content across each of the brand and localized channels for the larger brand story, menu items and drinks to training the marketing/social team members and developing content that speaks to the local audience was a key differentiator for Ole Red in social media across the hospitality space.

Ole Red Las Vegas opened in early 2024. I led social media from the pre-opening research and new market strategy, to the pre-opening, opening and Grand Opening phases. The Grand Opening strategy included creative content, social giveaways and informational posts about what to expect at the venue.

Ole Red Nashville is a central part of Nashville’s annual CMA Fest. Ole Red is the home of CMA Fest’s “Spotify House.” After years of developing and executing strategies to cover Spotify House at Ole Red, 2025 felt like the opportunity to become a larger part of the CMA Fest story. Ole Red was growing as a brand on social media, giving us a fun opportunity to integrate more into the larger fan experience. Using the Ol’ Red mascot, I came up with the idea for Ole Red to be “The CMA Fest Insider” in 2025. This entailed a lot of creative thinking and strategy to create content that was different from what every other bar on Broadway was creating and to appeal to more people on social media.

I created the overall strategy, with the following core creative ideas: Ole Red “fining” CMA Fest attendees with funny parking tickets, Ole Red creating your own OOO note for your boss so you can attend CMA Fest, general CMA Fest information like how long it takes to get between stages, fun in-the-moment ideas like weather updates, and “Ole Red CMA Fest Awards” to attendees/partners like the CMA Fest Busy Bee Award or the CMA Fest Just Here for the Vibes Award. The social strategy also included fun surprise giveaways captured for content.

The content garnered millions of views across Ole Red’s brand channels (Instagram, TikTok) and local channel (Ole Red Nashville Facebook). The channels also gained tens of thousands of followers in a span of one week.

*I created the overall strategy and set the team up to execute, but the content was captured by the team, not me. The examples below are included to show the strategy in action.