From Beach to Bottle

“No shoes, no shirt and no problems. Blues, what blues? Hey, I forgot 'em. The sun and the sand and a drink in my hand with no bottom. And no shoes, no shirt and no problems.”

– No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems, Kenny Chesney.  

Blue Chair Bay Rum is inspired by the island lifestyle of multi-platinum singer-songwriter Kenny Chesney. He explains the story behind Blue Chair Bay Rum in a YouTube video, stating  that he wanted to bottle the feeling of performing for fans, writing music, being on the ocean, hanging on the beach with his friends and family. He wanted to bottle the feeling of a sunset on the water that can just be taken in in complete silence and take your breath away. From beach to bottle, Blue Chair Bay Rum is Kenny Chesney’s take on bottling these emotions and experiences and sharing them with the world in a glass.

As an avid Kenny Chesney fan, (having seen him twice in concert in Seattle as part of the “No Shoes Nation fan base), I thought I would take a dive into the Facebook, Instagram and YouTube social media accounts for Blue Chair Bay Rum.

Facebook

Blue Chair Bay Rum’s Facebook page has more than 427M likes and 456M followers. Kenny Chesney is, of course, all over this page, but so are drink recipes, especially Halloween themed cocktails right now.

They post creative photos of drinks, aways featuring the Blue Chair Bay Rum flavor that is being utilized in the cocktail, with creative captions such as:

“Don't be afraid to get your hands a little dirty to create this creepy webbed martini! ” and

“Halloween is THIS Thursday! How are you going to celebrate? Get your Halloween recipes here: https://bluechairbayrum.com/recipes”

Some sort of visual is attached to every post—whether it be a photo of a cocktail or a photo of Kenny Chesney with the rum, or how-to-make this cocktail videos, or Kenny Chesney sharing concert or beach footage. This page is very appealing to scroll through because it is bright and entertaining. This matches the bottles of Blue Chair Bay Rum, which are vibrant as well, such as the Key Lime Rum Cream being bright green or the Coconut Rum being brilliant blue.

Almost every post is average more than 250 likes and upward of 40 comments. As of writing this post, their last Facebook post (an hour ago) has already received more than 25 likes and 4 comments.

Instagram

“Living the island lifestyle one sip at a time.” – Instagram Bio

The Instagram account for Blue Chair Bay Rum is not as popular as their Facebook page, with 158K followers. I would say this has to do with the fact that Kenny Chesney rose to fame as a country singer in the late 80s/early 90s, and his fan base tends to be millennials in their 30s+. But, he has reached across multiple generations and with the vibrantly brilliant posting on Instagram, I think Blue Chair Bay Rum will increase their following to the younger millennial base and Gen Z markets who utilize Instagram more than Facebook, if they use Facebook at all.

The content across the Instagram platform is very similar to that on Facebook, with creatively created photos and videos. The same post that was just uploaded to Facebook, was posted to Instagram an hour earlier and has 82 lives and 4 comments as of writing this blog. Across the platform, the posts are doing relatively as well as they are on Facebook with an average of more than 200 likes, but an average of less comments being around 15.

YouTube

This is where we get the video: “Kenny Chesney Tells the Story of Blue Chair Bay.”

It is the pinned video on Blue Chair Bay Rum’s homepage from 11-years ago with about 140K views, 1.6K likes, and 791 comments. The page has 7.12K followers and has posted 498 videos.

Their home page has videos broken into categories with some being “Cocktails with Kenny,” “#BCBHappyHour,” and “The Island Lifestyle.” The video views have a wide range from the upper hundreds to upward of 7K. Anything with Kenny Chesney hosting the video gets more views, but even the “how-to” make this cocktail videos are highly viewed.

Recap

All-in-all, Blue Chair Bay Rum’s Facebook is by far its most successful social media platform. Again, I think this has to do with the average age of his faithful “No Shoes Nation” fans are. But, I do not think that giving up on the other two platforms (Instagram and YouTube) would be wise. Their Instagram account is growing and will continue to as more and more of the “No Shoes Nation” fan base continue to grow in their use of the platform, and younger Kenny Chesney fans emerge. As I’ve said, I’ve been to two concerts and his crowd has a massive age range from parents with young kids in tow, to young teens, my age group and above. YouTube would be a huge loss because this page also ties in with Kenny Chesney’s artist page (with all his years of music videos) and fans who go to his page to watch a video are directed to view the Blue Chair Bay Rum page and vice versa. It’s a highly entertaining platform, which, needless to say is perfect for entertainment!