AJ Vaynerchuk

Gilbert Arenas “gets it.”

Gilbert Arenas is not only an all-world athlete, but he is also a highly underrated blogger. His blog, hosted on NBA.com, is updated a few times a month with great stories about himself, his teammates, and the National Basketball Association. While injured, he has kept his fans up to date on his progress while giving his audience an interesting perspective into the world of the injured professional athlete.

Gilbert doesn’t just blog, he actually interacts with his community and joins the conversation. For example, Gilbert happens to be a big fan of the game Halo 3 for xbox360. Instead of keeping to himself and playing online anonymously, Arenas released his gamertag to all of his fans (Agent Arenas)

Another example of Gilbert embracing our world while building his brand is his use of Myspace. A lot of athletes have myspace, but Gilbert actually reads his messages. He claims to have responded to thousands of messages from kids who dream to play in the NBA. In fact, there was one time when Gilbert did more than just respond to a message.

After receiving a response from Gilbert’s myspace, teenager Garrett Scanlon couldn’t believe it. Not convinced, the teenager asked if the two could meet sometime. Gilbert’s response? An invite to the Verizon Center for one of the Gil’s workouts. Days later, Garrett Scanlon was escorted to the Verizon Center’s court to meet Gilbert Arenas. “Garrett stayed for a bit, and they played video games in the players lounge, and Gilbert gave him a basketball and his new Gil Zeros–before they had been released–and that was that, since Gil had to leave for a game that night at Barry Farms.” Believe it or not, the two still hang out on occasion and speak regularly on the phone. Now that’s what I call interacting with your community.

Chris Bosh gets it.

Not only is Chris Bosh a 2 time all-star, but he is also a big time YouTube director. Having his own channel, CBoshTV, Chris has done short skits, music videos, and interviews. Just a few days ago the Georgia Tech alum interviewed funny man Will Ferrell to help promote the new movie Semi Pro.

Bosh’s biggest success in the viral video world came when he made his appeal to start in this years NBA All Star Game. Gaining over 500,000 views Bosh dressed up liked a used car salesman and delivered his pitch to his fans. Surprisingly the video is actually pretty funny. If I had to guess, I would say Chris Bosh is a better actor than Daniel Day Lewis is basketball player.

To Bosh’s credit he isn’t a one trick pony. He updates his blog on his personal website often, and although he is no Gilbert Arenas, it is still worth the read. The website has a section for forums where his fans can sort of “live,” and the news section keeps his fans up to date.

By updating his blog regularly, and realizing that a large portion of his audience lives and breathes YouTube, Chris Bosh has done a wonderful job understanding the importance of self-branding on the Internet. Kids see Chris Bosh as one of the funniest guys in the NBA, and that fact alone will boost jersey sales and all-star votes.

Rudy Gay gets it.

Rudy Gay is a youngster on the upswing in the NBA. After being selected to his first NBA Slam Dunk Contest, Rudy decided that it would be too hard to come up with a new and exciting dunk on his own. Instead of asking friends and family, Rudy turned to his fans. The RudyGay22SlamDunk YouTube Channel was created with the idea that fans could send in home videos of a new, innovative dunks. The only stipulations? “Don’t do anything unsafe, and no props.”

The idea worked. Rudy Gay’s introduction video to the contest was viewed 2,022,941 times. On top of that, 222 separate dunks were submitted to Rudy. The fans weren’t the only one who took notice, the media jumped all over the publicity stunt. ESPN, Yahoo Sports and bloggers everywhere covered the story.

This is an excellent example of a young player leveraging the Internet to build his brand. Every time a kid went outside to film a custom dunk for Rudy, surely his friends asked him what he was doing. The response? “That’s awesome. Rudy Gay is cool!” Every time that same kid was done making the video and done uploading it to YouTube, you can guarantee he shared it with his friends on Myspace, Facebook, and AOL Instant Messenger. By interacting with and involving his community, Rudy Gay managed to establish himself as a “cool” basketball player.

If You Liked This Post

If you liked this post, consider letting me know on Twitter or adding the RSS feed just in case I write something else you might like!