Together with

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Baseline!

Let’s jump right into your weekly blueprint for basketball culture…

MARKETING BLUEPRINT

Earlier this week, I posted a video on Instagram about Damian Lillard using YouTube comments to directly engage with his fans.

Within an hour—on a Bucks game day, no less—Dame reposted my video to his story.

That one share gave my video an additional 85,000 views by tapping into his audience.

Here’s the one social media growth hack I used:

I initiated an Instagram collab with a few Damian Lillard fan pages.

One of them, @thedamezone, only has 1,622 followers.

But one of those followers just happens to be Damian Lillard himself.

After they accepted the collab invite, my video appeared in Dame’s feed, which led to him sharing it with his 10 million followers.

I've used this fan page strategy with every brand and client I work with.

And you can too.

Find niche fan pages, accounts, or communities that align with your brand’s content.

Use social media for its primary purpose—to facilitate connections, build communities, and tap into shared interests.

Because when you put your content in front of the right audience, the right people will take notice.

FREE THROWS

Sharing the tools and resources that I’m using this week:

🤖 AI Tools FYI - A comprehensive database to help you find the best AI tools to make your life and job easier!

🤳 Day Trading Attention - 47-page deck directly from the desk of Gary Vee on how to actually build brand and sales in the new social media world.

👀 Perspective on Internet Views - Your specific target audience seeing your content is far more valuable than a large number of non-relevant people seeing it.

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FAST BREAK

Here’s what you missed this week:

👟 After getting her college jersey retired—Nike and A'ja Wilson officially unveiled their long-awaited Nike A'One signature sneaker and apparel collection, which will be released this May.

🃏 Anthony Davis is launching a new prank show on TBS called “Foul Play” in partnership with the team from “Impractical Jokers”. To be honest, we all thought we were being pranked by the AD and Luka trade.

🚫 Jordan Brand returned to social media and shared a new Banned Video featuring their entire Jordan family—from athletes to entertainers to cultural tastemakers.

🍔 Angel Reese is the first female athlete to have a special McDonald's meal as the "Angel Reese Special," will be available on 2/10.

🌍 Adam Silver suggested that the NBA could shorten games to 10-minute quarters to help the league adapt and become more involved in global basketball.

2️⃣2️⃣ Caitlin Clark returned to Iowa to celebrate her jersey retirement and wore an incredible Nike jacket that featured all of her career accolades.

🐍 As part of Nike's Year of the Mamba celebration, the Swoosh unveiled special edition Kobe Bryant baseball jerseys.

📲 With over 1.2 million TikTok followers, Overtime Elite's and University of South Carolina commit Eli Ellis may be the most influential teen hooper.

📚 Candace Parker announced a new book, "The Can-Do Mindset," which will be available on June 3rd, and shares her recipe for resilience, passion, and success.

🏀 The NBA announced its Celebrity Game participants, including Kai Cenat, Druski, Chris Brickley, and more.

🎬 Netflix announced a new comedy show starring Kate Hudson as an NBA team president, inspired by Jeanie Buss (President and Controlling Owner of the Los Angeles Lakers).

POST-GAME

If you havn’t yet—can you take this quick 60 second survey?

Your insights will help me better understand your interests, challenges, and goals, which will enable me to create better content and products to share with you.

Thanks!

— Jeff Chen | 🏀💡👨🏻‍💻

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