Inside the Bucks’ social media strategy that drew 2.5 million all-star votes for Giannis Antetokounmpo

Giannis Antetokounmpo shocked NBA fans and social media this January when early all-star vote totals were released for the 2018 game. At that point, Antetokounmpo led all vote-getters, ahead of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Steph Curry.

Now with voting complete, we know he finished second in overall fan votes — behind James. At just 23 years old, with the hardest name to spell in the league, and a small-market fan base, the tally is still proof that Antetokounmpo has arrived on the national stage.

It’s also the result of his team’s massive social media initiative to create a personal and meaningful campaign surrounding him. SB Nation interviewed Bucks’ senior vice president Alex Lasry about how the team rallied behind its star to shake up the all-star hierarchy.

How did you manage a campaign around the player with the hardest name to spell in the league when the idea is for fans to type in players’ names on social media to count votes?

AL: The strategy was headed by our head of social media, Nick Monroe. He kind of built upon what we did last year. A lot of it was trying to customize Twitter voices and letting people know they could tag him on Twitter rather than spell it out. And on Facebook, telling people ‘Hey look, you can copy and paste the name Giannis Antetokounmpo #NBAVOTE right here into the comments.’ Those were the big things from a naming perspective. Same thing with Google and Alexa and all that.

The biggest thing we wanted to do was tap into the international fan base. We knew that we were going have a very powerful Milwaukee fan base and that they were gonna come out because they did that all last year and showed how intense they were going to be. We worked with partners from around the world [including Nike, Aegean Airlines] to make sure things were posted on Facebook and tweeted in the native languages. It just shows we’re trying to integrate into the country but also makes it so that anyone who’s reading and may not speak English, knows what to do.

What types of partners were you trying to connect with internationally?

AL: Some of the Greek national teams we were working with, and then just also influencers that Nick has gotten to know working with Giannis on stuff over in Greece. Rather than just using Google translator, we were trying to make sure we were using local colloquium. I think we all know from having done high school papers that Google translator doesn’t always work.

Antetokounmpo finished No. 2 overall in the fan vote [higher than both Curry and Durant], but that’s still an incredible accomplishment. How much of that happened organically?

AL: I’ve worked in politics as my background [Lasry worked as a senior aide to Valerie Jarrett during President Barack Obama’s administration] so you kind of look at this as a political campaign. The biggest thing is you have to have a great candidate, and Giannis is an exceptional candidate.

He’s staying in lines at a local grocery store for an extra hour to sign autographs, making sure everyone gets an autograph. He’s coming out even after a loss to greet fans who have paid a lot of money to come see him. I think that he came out in New York last year where he stayed outside the bus for 30 minutes [signing autographs]. Or when he stays with Raptors fans after a game. That’s just who he is.

He does a lot of things on his own to build that base. What we’re trying to do is support and amplify. He’s having an MVP-caliber season and his highlight reel is crazy. And a lot of [voting] has to do with our ability to push out content from him quickly and in real time. That has a lot to do with being able to amplify him on social media.

A fan can like a player because of his highlights or his shoe line and that’s as deep as it goes. But when you create relationships like that with fans, it gives them a reason to be invested in that player’s success.

AL: I think what’s also interesting, and you just mentioned this, Giannis is doing this without a signature endorsement deal. You’re not seeing him at the Nike store all the time and people are trying to buy the Freak 1’s. He doesn’t have a major Sprint, or Pepsi, or Gatorade deal where you are seeing him on TV all the time. It’s just through sheer force of will and how likable he is and how much of a highlight reel that he is.

What is it like knowing you have broken through some of the small-market challenges with Antetokounmpo?

AL: It’s fun. It’s exciting to be a part of that. Mostly because we see this as a great thing for Milwaukee. And you know, one of the things we said in the arena debate was, “Look, this is gonna be something that puts (us) on the map. This is gonna be something that puts Wisconsin on the map nationally and internationally.” Giannis playing with Milwaukee across his chest and all these retweets coming from the Milwaukee Bucks. You know, growing up I wanted to go the University of North Carolina because that’s where Michael Jordan played. And I wanted to play at Georgetown because that’s where Patrick Ewing played. I didn’t know Georgetown was a Catholic school and my parents would never have let me go there, but I have no doubt that people around the world right now are googling Milwaukee. If I’m going to visit the states, I want to go see LA, New York, Chicago, and Milwaukee because my favorite basketball player is there.

And you definitely see that, you see fans make trips just to see players like Antetokounmpo.

AL: I think that also just helps us as we try and pitch this story around the league that Milwaukee is a place you want to be. You can be voted No. 1 in the NBA even from Milwaukee. You don’t have to be in New York or be in Philadelphia.

What I think we’ve been able to kind of show is you can still be in a small market and have a massive impact, and still have mass appeal. And again, we’re not going to be able to turn Joe Schmoe into an international candidate. That has to come from how great Giannis is.

It also looks like he gets a ton of support from his family

AL: Yeah, you see Giannis’ brother tweeting three, four times a day. You see his mom joining Twitter literally to start voting for Giannis. His brothers are doing it. That’s part of Giannis. He’s a family guy. It’s basketball and family. Those are some of the most important things to him.

You see his girlfriend posting candid photos of Giannis. I think one she just posted today “Even all-stars are people too” and it’s with Giannis with an exfoliant on his face. It’s the fact Giannis is totally cool with all that stuff and shows what kind of person he is and what he wants his image to be.

We’ll make sure we get great pictures of Giannis, we want his family to have them, and send them for them to post. We just try to look at ourselves as an extension of Giannis’ family and promote in a similar way.

Do you have a strategy for the amount of posts you’re trying to hit each day? Is there a goal you’re trying to reach?

AL: I have a lot of trust in Nick and he has a great feel for all of this. I don’t think there was a specific number that we were trying to go get, like 50K retweets per day or 1K Google searches or 10K FB posts. We generally knew how many retweets we were going to get. We have that data. So we say we’re going to post this amount on Twitter and this amount on Facebook, and also telling people on double vote days to go to NBA.com. We wanted to make sure that fans knew they can vote 1,000 times if they want. My mom will sit on Twitter and will just retweet anyone who tweets Giannis Antetokounmpo #NBAVote. One person can create 500 votes if they want.

Is there a way to know which platform is producing more votes for you?

AL: We could do it analog, but unfortunately the NBA doesn’t count it out. Facebook just has a bigger reach; the only problem with Facebook is that you have to write out his full name. That’s why we tell people to copy and paste. On Twitter you can just use his Twitter handle, on Facebook you have to do his entire name. We don’t want to flood people’s timelines, and then they get annoyed. That’s why we created ways for people to customize their own votes, so you can put out a tweet that also comes with a video clip and then you could write whatever you wanted with that video clip. We wanted to make it fun, interesting, and customizable so people were engaged.

This year was the first year fans could vote through Amazon Alexa and the first for 2-for-1 voting days. Were there any other interesting or quirky new ways to vote this year?

AL: I think Alexa was probably the quirkiest. You can use Google search to vote, but you could do that last year. I don’t even know what effect Alexa has on voting. I have to imagine Giannis is one of the hardest ones to do with Alexa.

We have that great clip of Giannis saying, ‘If people could spell my name right I’d have a million more votes.’ And I’m sure if they could say his name right you could have another few hundred thousand from Alexa voting.

Were there other countries besides Greece you tried to focus on?

AL: Greece was the biggest focus but we did do other countries around Europe.

I respect the idea of rather than making a play on words, and making a big deal that you can’t spell his name, just covering the actual player that he is for this campaign.

AL: Yeah and I think the name thing was cute when he was 21 or 22. Now he’s an MVP candidate. We don’t need to do anything kitschy like that anymore. He’s proven himself on the court. He’s the Greek Freak. I don’t think Giannis would be in the top two in voting if it wasn’t, first, for how he acts on and off the court. Giannis makes it easy for us to look good.