Four Years After #Linsanity, Hornets PG Jeremy Lin Quietly Thriving On Social Media

Who is the top NBA player on YouTube in terms of subscribers and views?

When Kyle Nelson walks into a boardroom to pitch a prospective client about his social intelligence and analytics company, MVPindex, chances are that no one can answer the above icebreaker; in fact, that has never happened to the Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of the Dallas-based company.

(Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images).

It’s been over four years since the #Linsanity movement, Jeremy Lin’s rise to national prominence as a player for the New York Knicks. The five minutes of fame on the hardwood quickly came and went for the current Charlotte Hornets point guard, but what has quietly remained is his social influence.

“Jeremy loves living in social,” said Nelson, adding that Lin touts 535,000-plus subscribers on YouTube along with 53 million video views. “… He enjoys giving full access to his fans, and that kind of personality on social and that openness gets rewarded. Fans see it, they follow it, and they engage in it.”

According to MVPindex, which calculates athletes’ follower counts, engagement and online sentiment into an index score, Lin currently ranks in the top five among NBA players, with the likes of James, recently-retired star Kobe Bryant and 2015 MVP, Stephen Curry.

After signing with the Golden State Warriors in 2010, Lin received about a thousand ‘Friend’ requests to his personal Facebook page overnight, and his then-agent, Roger Montgomery, immediately created a Twitter account. Little did the Harvard graduate know that his journey into the social space was just beginning. Still, it took some initial prodding and urging from a college buddy and personal trainer, Josh Fan, for Lin to give it a chance.

The two met through mutual friends during their undergraduate days in Boston and have remained close ever since — literally. Wherever Lin has traveled in the NBA, Fan has followed, splitting time between basketball trainer and social strategist.

At the outset of their digital expedition, Fan recognized the growing popularity of two celebrity YouTubers, Ryan Higa and Kevin Wu, and suggested that they start there.

“We enjoyed their content ourselves and naturally, we gravitated towards them,” Fan said of Higa and Wu. “…Our initial strategy was to meet with them, and jumpstart Jeremy’s social media presence and see if he was comfortable behind the camera. Through that process, it opened Jeremy’s eyes to the world of social media and the reach you could have on social.”

Added Lin: “You’re removing some of the barriers behind your public life and your private life. As I was becoming a little more known among the public, it scared me that I might lose my privacy. I also don’t think I was comfortable in front of cameras for a very long time. The one thing I loved about social media is you control the product and what comes out. I am not saying anything through a reporter, and then he or she writes what they want to write. With social media, I can write what I want when I want to write it.”

With a trusted friend behind the camera, Lin initially created two separate YouTube videos with Wu and Higa, garnering close to eight million views.

He saw the early social success in the Fall of 2011 and finally was sold on what Fan had been telling him for a year straight. The two now live in the same Charlotte complex and constantly discuss ways to leverage Lin’s presence across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and other channels. 

So, what’s been the social strategy for Lin and Fan, who has taught himself on the fly how to edit videos, create engaging copy and operate in the digital ecosystem?

Plain and simple, it’s posting content that they would want to consume themselves. There’s a “Christian element” to a lot of what Lin posts, whether it’s a faith verse, a moral cause he supports or a particular value he strives to exhibit in his daily life.

Each week, the duo plans a content calendar around Lin’s practice and game schedule. Regardless if it’s Lin or Fan actually sending a Tweet or creating an Instagram post, Lin is always dialed into the conversation about how he presents himself online.

(via Jeremy Lin/Instagram).

Scroll through his Instagram — where he is among the top 30 most-followed NBA players — and there are more traditional photos with fans and ‘Throwback Thursday’ images with family members. Conversely, Lin sports his unique hairstyles, gives fans a behind-the-scenes look into his workout regiment and even documents his grocery shopping on hoverboards with, yes, Fan still behind the camera filming.

In mid-March, Lin joined Snapchat, a platform tailored to real-time, quick-hitting images and videos. The millennial-dominated channel allows Lin to hit a younger audience and be more freewheeling.

For someone who was weary about pulling back the curtain on his life, Lin has now gone “full tilt” on social. 

“It’s important to show who I am off the court,” Lin said. “Society is so quick to assume things about who you are. People see my demeanor on the court, they see an Asian guy from Harvard, and they assume a lot of different things. Who I am off the court, a lot of people would be surprised by those things. Part of why I am more understood or part of why my brand is more in line with my personality is because we have been able to push out the more off-the-court side through social media.”

Mark works in Talent Marketing at Atlanta-based sports and entertainment marketing agency, CSE. Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkJBurns88. He can be reached at mburns@groupcse.com.