Twitter 101 for Athletes with Benson Mensah-Bonsu, Athlete Partnerships at Twitter
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A special episode on how athletes can use Twitter to build their brands and engage with fans. Skylar Smith and Brian Bosche speak with Benson Mensah-Bonsu, Athlete Partnerships at Twitter. They talk about what athletes can do to build a strong social media presence, how to use Twitter effectively to engage with fans, and how Twitter can be used to attract sponsors. They also discuss how British basketball clubs and players can grow the culture of the sport in the UK.
Full Transcript:
Skylar Smith:
Hi everyone, and welcome back to the High Tea Hoops podcast. This is Skylar, the duchess of hoops as always, back with Brian, the duke of hoops.
Brian Bosche:
High Tea Hoops.
Skylar Smith:
How's it going?
Brian Bosche:
It's going-
Skylar Smith:
High Tea Hoops, you completely missed it.
Brian Bosche:
I'm like five seconds delayed. I don't think we've ever nailed that intro.
Skylar Smith:
No.
Brian Bosche:
But I am doing fantastic. We can talk about this later, but the BBL is no Sky Sports, breaking news this morning, on Friday. So amazing.
Skylar Smith:
Very exciting day.
Brian Bosche:
I'm hyped.
Skylar Smith:
Hyped. I'm hyped because we have a great episode today. We are here with Benson Mensah-Bonsu, a sports partnership manager at Twitter. Benson, how's it going?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
It's going great. How's everybody doing? Everybody like the whole world out there.
Skylar Smith:
Both, two of us.
Brian Bosche:
Hey, fans who can't respond.
Skylar Smith:
Hello, world.
Brian Bosche:
Thanks for listening. Give us a five start review. Thank you.
Skylar Smith:
Thanks so much for being here today.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
No problem.
Brian Bosche:
We had to build-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
This is happening.
Brian Bosche:
We had to build an audience before we brought you on, Benson. You've been on our list for a while. I DM'd you pretty early on. I was just waiting for the right moment to get you on.
Skylar Smith:
Shooting shots. Obviously, some of our listeners will have an idea of who you are. They've seen you around Don V, UK basketball, Twitter community, but for those who don't know, how about you tell us a little bit about your background in marketing and sports?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, sure. Where do I start?
Brian Bosche:
We'll get into the family stuff later, if you just want to start in professional world, you can start there.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Professional world, okay professional world. Professional starts circa 2008 at GW, undergrad was somewhat undecided. I knew I wanted to do marketing and I think sports management came in. The Summer before my Freshman year it was almost like completely challenging to find an internship as an international student, so all of my friends were working at big, advertising, marketing firms, as well as consulting firms with great internships and ultimately only option I had was to pretty much do it by myself, so I ended up starting a business with a colleague who was a top tier developer, to which during that time we did some awesome stuff. We ended building brands, marketing campaigns for Keyon Dooling, Nolan Smith, and we built a publication for Keyon Dooling and Good Sports Oddity, which was focused on showing what athletes were doing from a philanthropic standpoint.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, my focus was pretty much kind of with the business. It was mainly a biz tool agency helping small businesses transition from traditional media to more efficient, cost effective PPC, social campaigns, as well as building effective websites, eCommerce scores, and so forth.
Brian Bosche:
That was 2008?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
That was 2008.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, that's when people didn't have websites yet. It was so long ago.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
So I mean, yeah, we were building the infrastructure, almost establishing it quite early on. During that time the sales process was quite interesting just trying to convince people who were so used to just sending direct mails that actually not ... I guarantee you that if someone clicks on your link they're going to buy from you. You want to consider this. As well as just being a little bit more destructive with the brand in and design. I thought if I look at Keyon Dooling, Pat the Rock. I'm not sure if you remember him from AND One, but Pat the Rock is still using the same brand identity that we-
Brian Bosche:
Wow.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Did for him.
Brian Bosche:
That's amazing.
Skylar Smith:
Lasting power.
Brian Bosche:
Get the nostalgia going.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly. Yeah, I did that about in 2012, ended up sort of into business ... I mean, the revenue that we needed in order for me to kind of stay in American prolonged wasn't there, but I was able to get a great opportunity back in England where ultimately I wanted to go client side. I moved over to what's [inaudible 00:04:13] where I worked for Fiat Chrysler, which is Fiat, Jeep, Alfa Romeo, a couple other brands and I was the bitch to lead, so I was responsible for taking the above the line creative and just back to the on bitch tool. I did some awesome stuff with the likes of Microsoft Xbox, you name it, I had budget to spend to bring things to life.
Brian Bosche:
That's amazing. Love that automotive budget.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly.
Brian Bosche:
Skylar's from Detroit. I lived in Detroit. You love that, you love that automotive budget.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I just missed out on going to the Mototwns go on CV, the Chrysler office.
Brian Bosche:
Cool.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
But yeah, I was there for five years, just really just helping them build the bitch tool infrastructure to kind of help build a much for efficient like sales process. We're doing so much with magazines at the time and everything was changing. I mean, it went to the point where before no one was really advertising on Facebook to Facebook and Twitter being the core places you advertise, because that's where people were spending their time. Then, I transitioned to a tech company, the small business spot, just hitting it working with all of the big B to B tech companies, from a lead generation standpoint. During all of that time I was still on the back end consulting with athletes and sports entities, primarily players, which helped me secure the gig at Twitter's, just a thing where I kind of understood what needed to be done and they were like, "Yeah, come in to do it."
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, absolutely. Before we dive into the Twitter stuff, because I do want to figure out and learn more about the role there, you grew up in a basketball family, which Heidi Hoops are trying to build the culture of basketball in the UK. It's always been, "How do we get more interest in the MBA and the BBL and the WBBL?" Benny's your sister, director of daily content for the Olympic channel, Pops, obviously, NBA player list. Incredible family in sports. What was it like growing up in London where you actually were in the basketball culture in the UK?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
So I think one thing that I've got to mention is that anyone that really played basketball as a child probably started in secondary school, because it wasn't in any [crosstalk 00:06:31]-
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, a lot of people start late.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly. I think the first person I want to give a shout out to is my oldest brother, PoJo. He basically [inaudible 00:06:40] so everyone could run, jump, and possibly make it to the MBA. PoJo, I mean the first opportunity I got with basketball experience, PoJo had moved to America. At the time he just graduated from Washington State University and you guys have probably-
Brian Bosche:
Oh, nice.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Heard of this event. Yeah, you've probably heard of this event, which is called Rough and Ready.
Brian Bosche:
Yes.
Skylar Smith:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Brian Bosche:
Oh, I wish they still had it. That sounds incredible.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
To this day [crosstalk 00:07:05]-
Brian Bosche:
In Brighton, right? On the beach?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
No, in Brixton.
Brian Bosche:
Oh, in Brixton.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yes.
Brian Bosche:
Got it.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
It was-
Brian Bosche:
The big tournament.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
The Brixton Rec. The amount of people they brought in. It was really prolific shout to Matt Ridar. My oldest brother, this is the first time I got to see him play. He had been living in America for about five years, came back, and I remember looking at the sheet and everybody, they basically had the bars to just justify everybody's game, and my brother was the only one that had full bars across the board.
Brian Bosche:
Like the MBA jam bars? Is that-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly, yeah.
Brian Bosche:
What they had? That's amazing.
Skylar Smith:
That is a flex.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
And I just remember walking through and watching him and basically just carrying his bag, watching the whole room kind of gravitate towards him.
Brian Bosche:
How much older than you is he?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
CoJo is about, oh my god, now I have to do the math.
Brian Bosche:
Benson, this is taking too long.
Skylar Smith:
He was told there would be no maths.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
He's in his 40s.
Brian Bosche:
Okay, so quite a big age difference, so he got you guys in early.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah. At the time I was 11 years old and I just remember that. That was my first experience with basketball and to this day I remember watching Matt Bryant, Hemming, and Justin Robertson just casually dribbling the ball around Bricks [inaudible 00:08:32], and we're all the same age. At that point I was just like, "Yo, I need to get in this." So my brother, next week took me to a Bricks and Rec training camp and training [inaudible 00:08:43] and it was just like, "Yo, I need to [crosstalk 00:08:47]-
Brian Bosche:
Man, that's amazing to hear. Yeah.
Skylar Smith:
[inaudible 00:08:49].
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, pretty much.
Brian Bosche:
You were in it early in the glory days that we're trying to get back, from what it sounds like. I listen to a lot of Hoops Fix podcasts, shutout Sam Nita, Nita full time britches basketball advocate. Love him. So I've listened to the Rough and Ready pod.
Skylar Smith:
Love saying the full title.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, in my terrible British accent.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, I mean I just wait for Joe White to come and coo me. At that point, Joe, like he literally did spin for me. That's the most funnies thing. At the time he had moved to Harringay, so the whole white heat movement and infrastructure was build on a Hackney Haringey hybrid and to this day it's by far one of the best experiences that I almost try and encourage as many teams to consider as a way of really understanding what it means to have a family outside of your own, but have something to kind of keep you focused, because we were doing school, we were training twice a week off the ... It was the idea that we were traveling together at the end, out the barrel, and experiencing things together, but growing up. I still to this day, some of the guys we grew up with are like still some of my closest friends. Then, I got the opportunity to go state side. Went to Maine, bored out there it was all so great to see other British ballers transition to the states, because we knew that in order to transition or get to the next level, America in any capacity was the holy grail.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I think the one thing we realized is actually we're starting again and we're starting so far behind, because these guys have been playing basketball from age of three, four, five, and they've had it in their hands. Unfortunately, I hate to use this term, but our athleticism kind of pushed us ahead and we were still trying to learn the game, but the American way, because now you're competing at different level. These kids are playing easily 20, 30 hours a week and casually where as before in England it was four to eight hours max.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, it's serious, especially with AU rising.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, oh my gosh, AU.
Brian Bosche:
It's crazy. AU tournaments are wild.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
If I've got time, I have to talk about AU, man, because AU was like the best Summer experience ever.
Brian Bosche:
You took an AU Summer tour?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I, no, so I was on the Maine ... I can't remember what the Maine team was called, but it was like the Maine all star team and we had two teams. I remember one weekend we'd go down to New York and we're like, "We're going to really come up against some boilers."
Brian Bosche:
Damn.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
And we had somewhat imposter syndrome and we go down there and we blast them all out.
Brian Bosche:
The Maine team?
Skylar Smith:
Let's go.
Brian Bosche:
Go Maine.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yes. We-
Brian Bosche:
Lobsters and basketball. That's what they do.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
We blasted them all out to the point where they're talking crap and you could hear them talking crap.
Brian Bosche:
Love it.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Hey, we're getting buckets. We make it to Orlando, get there, we're like, "Yo, we need to do something." When we get there we realize basketball's on a different level. Marcus Jordan, we played Marcus Jordan, so Michael Jordan was watching us play against his son and we got-
Skylar Smith:
That's wild.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Blown out by 20 points and yeah, Jordan was definitely wearing the boot cuts, so ...
Brian Bosche:
Love it.
Skylar Smith:
How many sizes too big were they?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Oh my god, you can fit another two, three legs [crosstalk 00:12:26].
Skylar Smith:
That's incredible you got an in person siting of the boot cuts.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Oh, yes.
Skylar Smith:
That is incredible.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, he was just sitting court side and it was like, ugly.
Skylar Smith:
Also, I can't imagine being able to say, "Michael Jordan watched me get my ass kicked." Like what a weird story to have as a child.
Brian Bosche:
Seriously. That's so good.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I've never struggled in a zone, like they destroyed us, but most of these kids had like D1 full ride scholarships, so just to have that experience was like phenomenal and to be in a room filled with like teenagers that all had the same goal of like achieving a goal where we were just going to college, getting a scholarship, or making it to the NBA.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, so it sounds like you got the London basketball experience in the '90s or the 2000s. Quick question for you: Does Tottenham have the best basketball team in the premier league?
Skylar Smith:
Brian's been dying-
Brian Bosche:
Gareth Bale out there hitting corner threes?
Skylar Smith:
To ask you this.
Brian Bosche:
Harry Kane's son?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
You saw that, right?
Brian Bosche:
Yeah. There are so many. Son can play.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
The son.
Brian Bosche:
The floater.
Skylar Smith:
Let him get the ball.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
He came like was it this?
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, it was the two hands. I love it. I love they play after practice, it looks like. Jose loves it.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
They've got it there, just posted up.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, the hoop's on the field, on the pitch.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly. I mean, one thing I've kind of noticed in a lot of the top sports teams and you've probably even seen the Lakers do it, they almost kind of foster like a casual alternative sports experience where they have it for fun, but it's a way of kind of either warming up or just keeping that team spirit about it.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, it's really cool to see.
Skylar Smith:
You'll see teams kick around a football before games. It's-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Oh yeah.
Skylar Smith:
Really seems just fun. Okay, Brian got his Tottenham question.
Brian Bosche:
Thank you, Skylar.
Skylar Smith:
Out of the way. He's been dying to ask you that. You're a Tottenham fan. We're a Tottenham fans, but-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Born and raised Tottenham, FYI.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, I love it. Get the arsenal people off my timeline.
Skylar Smith:
We're not as hard core as that. We got to choose Tottenham as our team, but he had to get that question.
Brian Bosche:
I think Selena Conroy from the BBL's a big arsenal, so we battle on Twitter a lot, but that's all right. You can ask your questions, now Sky.
Skylar Smith:
Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Brian.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I have to be impartial, so while I am pro Tottenham I, because of everybody that I work with I have to be-
Brian Bosche:
Sports are great.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Impartial.
Skylar Smith:
Luckily on this podcast-
Brian Bosche:
All sports are great.
Skylar Smith:
You do not have to be impartial. You can be wild and on the spot. Don't worry.
Brian Bosche:
The Benson from Twitter's official statement, "All sports and all clubs are great."
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yes.
Skylar Smith:
I just hope both teams have fun. Okay, let's get into your role at Twitter a little bit. Can you just tell us what it's been like managing athlete partnerships at Twitter?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, so it's been very interesting and it's almost been like a culture shock, because I felt, kind of realized with Twitter everything that happens in the real world impacts what I do in any capacity. Just looking at Rashford and just the conversation that accelerates around him and then even going back to the point of when the players in the NBA decided to boycott because of the [crosstalk 00:15:49] Breonna Taylor. But just in general anything that happens in the real world kind of impacts what what I do and there's almost a source of inspiration, so when it does happen that's where my ideas start to kind of brew up and I get the opportunity to kind of say, "Hey, I saw what happened. I think in order to kind of keep the conversation going and for you to be able to share your voice effectively, let's look at doing this. Let's look at doing this." But to just kind of give you insight on what I do, there's almost like three pillars. The first is health and safety, so protect the athletes use of the platform every day.
Brian Bosche:
Seriously. So many trolls you have to fight against.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, but some of it is ... You'd be surprised at how many athletes don't remember their password or what email address they used or ...
Brian Bosche:
That does not surprise me at all.
Skylar Smith:
They're just like moms, they just constantly need help getting in.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Next is basically just keeping them up to date with new tools, new functionality and getting them to beta test it before everybody else does, and also yeah, just helping them tell their story with original content and really understanding how they communicate and being able to amplify more effectively based on what I've seen them do.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, I was able to go to the Twitter Sports Summit in San Francisco a couple years ago with all of the, basically ever major sports league team was there, represented and they were telling some incredible stories of how Twitter is helping MBA Twitter, all of these different leagues, really be-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly.
Brian Bosche:
That second screen experience. Are there any public projects related to athlete partnerships that you can highlight or just give our listeners a sense of: What does helping an athlete build their brand, increase their influence on Twitter really look like?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah. Public. There are a couple that are coming up, but I just can't really [inaudible 00:17:46].
Brian Bosche:
That's all right, we'll follow up.
Skylar Smith:
We'll have you back on.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I don't want to jinx it. But yeah, a lot of where my focus is, is being able to kind of looking at how we can A, like the Marcus Rashford's and a couple athletes that have been more socially driven, so like Lewis Hamilton, Hector Bellerin, and others that are just willing to tell their story, whereas we've got others that it's just almost encouraging that they used to be a little bit better. You find it funny, but I kind of told Aubameyang like ... He speaks five languages.
Brian Bosche:
Wow.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
He's just notorious, he was notorious for re-tweeting. I was just like, "Look, the more languages you speak, can you consider like typing something into the re-tweet. It doesn't have to be any words. You can just use emojis and if you've got a Aubameyang's [inaudible 00:18:42] right now, re-tweet, this has an emoji.
Brian Bosche:
So you're actually working with the individual athletes to almost be their consultant on how to get better at Twitter.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, so the athletes, their agencies, and almost encouraging them like whenever they've got an idea or they're working on the campaign or there's something they want to drive, come to me and let me figure out how we make this work. And it also had an influence over the narrative and how it gets distributed. Yeah, because usually when we do we notice that the big media houses want to jump in and want to tap into that conversation. Yeah. At the end of the day everything is about accelerating the conversation and ensuring that there is a conversation that happens on the backend of it.
Skylar Smith:
Yeah, that being said, what do you think makes a strong social media presence for an athlete and who are some athletes that you think are examples of people who are doing it really well and people that other athletes could learn from?
Brian Bosche:
Well, it sounds like it's emojis on re-tweet, right? That's the golden ticket. That's what we've got to do.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Oh, sorry. Can you read the first part of the question, so I can get that right of before jumping on to that?
Skylar Smith:
Yeah, yeah. What makes a strong social media presence for an athlete?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
So strong media, it's all about authenticity, being you and being you always. Sometime you just see athletes wanting to comment on things and in those instances they're quite reliant on someone being able to write the copy and just chime in. I mean, after a while I think you realize that the public is just like, "Oh, this is the same thing over and over again," posting before a game, posting after a game, posting a training picture. It's almost redundant and there's nothing genuine to it until you kind of see them take you into their house or they jump in on a conversation about the NBA, so premier league player talking about Kobe and that's where you start to see a level of authenticity that just goes beyond what they're doing on the court. Yeah, I mean just to, I think it would be out past the kind of highlight. [inaudible 00:21:13] O'Zell from arsenal.
Brian Bosche:
Now you're making, now you're just covering up for yourself right now with all these arsenal references.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
This is the worst bit.
Brian Bosche:
You're compensating. You're over-compensating.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, he's been using his platform for his social good. He's got over 25 million followers, which is definitely the most in the UK of an athlete. Marcus Rashford and it's ... There's no words I can put behind Marcus Rashford's as someone who grew up like him to see him just kind of push that agenda and just literally make no excuses for it, make it seem like it's one of his core focuses. It's the point where there is a difference. You've got Marcus Rashford, the difference between Marcus Rashford the athlete and then Marcus Rashford the social good advocate. Who else?
Brian Bosche:
Well, I just thought-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I really want to focus-
Brian Bosche:
The Kaepernick, Lebron, Rashford, like them stepping up with those present, so it's not just authentic, but they have ... You see different parts of them as a human-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly.
Brian Bosche:
And not just the training picture. As much as I love Magic Johnson's Twitter. It's not just these two teams aren't playing tonight.
Skylar Smith:
Listen, he's found his lane.
Brian Bosche:
Skylar loves it.
Skylar Smith:
He found his lane.
Brian Bosche:
He did. It's on brand now. It's totally on brand now.
Skylar Smith:
I think he has a great Twitter presence.
Brian Bosche:
It is great to see these athletes stepping up to not just training photos and game reactions, but who they are as people and it's not just about dribbling a ball or it's not just about-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly.
Brian Bosche:
What to do on the pitch.
Skylar Smith:
It's actually interesting. For as much as Lebron does, Lebron single handedly trying to save our democracy.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly.
Skylar Smith:
He's the best basketball-
Brian Bosche:
And Sue Bird.
Skylar Smith:
Player in the world. He does so many things.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
It's not his job.
Skylar Smith:
It's not his job, but he said, "Well, I think I can do it, so I'm going to step up." I appreciate that. It's wild. You can tell he does his social media. People shit on the Taco Tuesday thing, but I personally love seeing inside his house, love seeing his family, love seeing them just clowning around and first of all seeing how rich they are and seeing inside [inaudible 00:23:33].
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
His daughter's got her own house.
Brian Bosche:
Can I do it? So thankful-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Zuri has her own house and I want-
Brian Bosche:
I know she does.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
A tour of it.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, that's amazing to see.
Skylar Smith:
On the flip side-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I'm sorry [crosstalk 00:23:45]-
Skylar Smith:
What are some common missteps you see with athletes on social?
Brian Bosche:
Other than, so re-tweets, it seems like. If you're not really engaging and you're re-tweeting constantly.
Skylar Smith:
Yeah, if you're just not doing anything.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I wouldn't call it a misstep. I just think that your feed is supposed to be a representation of yourself and if all you're doing is re-tweeting, there isn't that much authenticity. A re-tweet is a way of you just kind of showing something you kind of stand for. When you add your commentary to it, it becomes your own, which is why we kind of did that experiment. I'm not sure if you remember where any time [inaudible 00:24:31] tweet something it just automatically came up with the quote.
Brian Bosche:
Oh, I think people on Twitter noticed.
Skylar Smith:
I think very smart people suddenly didn't know how to re-tweet.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, exactly.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Well, what we were doing there is we were almost trying to advocate for commentary. With the election that just passed, wanting people to kind of understand the information that they were sharing, but also put their own spin on it, so anybody that was reading it would understand what their views were on top of that article.
Brian Bosche:
So that's great advice for the athletes.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yes, definitely.
Brian Bosche:
And Twitter is so hard, because Instagram, even Tik Tok, these other platforms, I think it's a lot easier to share a photo of you conditioning or a video of you working out or just doing a story of you walking around London. But Twitter's hard. You have to put thoughts down. It's a real intellectual investment a lot of time.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Well, I mean, I think I have to say, video and images work much better on [crosstalk 00:25:35]-
Brian Bosche:
Yes. Agreed.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
But there's a level of ... You've got the perception side of things. You can always stage that, but when it comes to creating your voice, Twitter is that lane that you need to be in. One thing I kind of tell people is you always kind of want to let people kind of know who you are early on in your career, because if you retire and probably not use the time to be authentic and show who you are, it's going to be hard for them to kind of gauge that actually, "This is the authentic me," or be able to stand by you, because you didn't take the time to show instances of that. Twitter's one of the best places for that where which you standing up for BLM, you showing your frustration on-
Brian Bosche:
VAR?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Your football team. Right. Exactly. I mean, Gary Lineker. If you watch, Gary Lineker is a beast at it. And I mean even, it's humor. Humor goes a long way and when people can see that I think it's humorous. It opens so much door for them to get considered for dancing with the stars and ...
Brian Bosche:
Absolutely. This is an investment. The athletes have to choose to invest in this area.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly.
Brian Bosche:
And they're taking your advice and you're basically consulting with them. What are some of the reasons they actually do that? What are their goals? Why are they listening to Benson, say, "Hey, you need to add commentary. You can't just re-tweet." What's in it for the athletes to actually grow that presence on Twitter?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I think it's being able to not just grow their following, but to go a step further and just really establish a basis for clout and influence. For some of them it's about ... Some endorsements are based on like Twitter following and-
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, absolutely.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Other social media following. And there were others that are like tapped into what you're actually saying, to the point where they're willing to look at you and say, "Actually, Ovie, let's give you a book deal."
Skylar Smith:
Yes, Ovie.
Brian Bosche:
Seriously.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
You could kind of see the benefit and the output based on how you kind of put yourself out there. And granted, I do feel that athletes should definitely keep things private, but if they do want to open up to the world, and they want the world to see the authentic them, Twitter's one of the best places to kind of build that narrative.
Skylar Smith:
You mentioned Ovie. I'm an Ovie stand.
Brian Bosche:
You opened a can of worms here, Benson. You said Ovie.
Skylar Smith:
It used to be in my bio that I was an Ovie stand.
Brian Bosche:
Listen-
Skylar Smith:
I'm actually not even going to ask you about Ovie. I'm just joking, but-
Brian Bosche:
But listen, Skylar, I cannot believe they have a show every day, Benson. What is with UK reality TV? Every day? Do you know how many Summers I've spent now watching Love Island every night with the queen of hoops and the duchess of hoops?
Skylar Smith:
Every night.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
They're just giving the people what they want.
Skylar Smith:
Right.
Brian Bosche:
Seriously.
Skylar Smith:
That's what I always say. They wouldn't have it every night if people weren't watching it every night.
Brian Bosche:
We went to London-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Are you watching Jane?
Brian Bosche:
We went to London and they're like, "Let's find a pub to watch Love Island on tonight." I'm like, "Oh, my god."
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
It's funny, because I didn't watch it until Ovie got on it, because it was just like ... Shouldn't he be-
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, BBL player.
Skylar Smith:
Honestly, good time to pick it up. That was a good season.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, and I think I started talking about it more with people who were initially fans of it and they're just like, "Oh, so now you're engaged."
Brian Bosche:
I joke. I love Love Island.
Skylar Smith:
You can't resist.
Brian Bosche:
I've been sucked in fully now. I've converted over.
Skylar Smith:
Yeah, we've made him. What advice would you give to the British basketball players as they're building their brands on social media? Are there places where they should focus that maybe are different than NBA players or premier league players, just because it's a smaller market?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, I think they can only do so much with ... So just to kind of give you like a landscape, if you look at the media that is put out there for a premier league or NBA player, they're on TV, two, three hours for a game, and then they also got all of the top broadcaster creating content, highlight clips for them. Now, that isn't, that doesn't exist in its capacity at the top level in the BBL, which means that ultimately the athletes need to take a little bit more control of their brand and step it up.
Brian Bosche:
That's a great point.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
There are instances where I've seen the alternative talents pop out from some of these premier league, for some of these BBL athletes, so Kofi Joseph's, he does like these.
Brian Bosche:
He's an incredible artists.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Dope artist and since you're talking about him, his modeling as well.
Brian Bosche:
I mean, it helps when you're that attractive. It's so annoying.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly. He's got the [inaudible 00:31:02] swag.
Brian Bosche:
You're an athlete, professional athlete and artist and model. Come on, give me a break. Leave some room.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly. I think the key thing is just finding out what suits you and being able to start a conversation, not by yourself, but with a group of people. Joe from the London Lions is perfect for him, the cyber nerds. He's taping into a community that is growing exponentially, like eSports, gaming, and there is a culture of young teams that when they do become actual consumers and actual spenders, he's going to be an influence. He is already an influence in that space for that. That's one thing I kind of encourage a lot with these guys to think about or tap into. If you love music, try and be, work to be a voice of music, because it will be the perfect companion to your game on the court. You need to diversify your game on and off the court. Justin Roberson, I've consulting with him quite a bit and I know that he's going to be a force when it comes to leading the next generation of inner city kids that really just needs to figure out how to make it. Whatever it is, he wants to be the guy to use basketball to help him just figure out who they are and not allow the streets to do that.
Brian Bosche:
That's such a good point on diversifying. Zoe Scaman on our podcast last week, we talked a lot about that where if you want to expand, especially in the UK in basketball, find the other cultural elements within the UK, like music, like art-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly.
Brian Bosche:
Like eSports and video games and 2K, and she mentioned JuJu Smith Schuster and Ninja, they bring in all these different people to play a game of Fortnight and Drake playing Fortnight together-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly.
Brian Bosche:
So you get those cross-over audiences and then you can leverage that into something else. It's such a good method to actually bring everything together.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah. The one thing I say there is a lot of people think that just jumping on like that cross functional or that cross promotional piece works instantly, it actually doesn't. If I look at some of the top, premier league players that I like see on eSports teams and what not, whenever they talk about those, their side hustles it has the least engagement, only because they haven't been consistent with it. In order for them to be consistent with it they need to continue to post and start to create that narrative where whether it was twice a week, their engagement of upper, premier players or other UK athletes that will help them kind of grow their audience that both like football or both like the sport as well as eSports too.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Skylar Smith:
We see a lot of athletes end up trying their hands at similar ventures outside of sports though. We see a lot of sneaker deals. We see a lot of wine labels. We see a lot of clothing lines. Brian said eSports. Is there a way where athletes can ensure that their brand is unique and distinguishable even though they may be trying their hand at ventures that are really similar to a lot of other athletes?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah. It's interesting you say that, because I think over the last three or four years I've seen like more distinct like side hustles from ... I mean, if you look at most of the players that were in the Golden State Warriors or Kevin LeVrone, Andre Iguodala, like they used San Francisco and its tech to kind of just get into that-
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, their investment funds.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
[crosstalk 00:34:51] space.
Brian Bosche:
Launching full VC firms.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
And I know from hearing stories from my brother talk about Chris Bosch, it's to the point where there were people out there that had money and because these guys have got so much influence they're like ... They will throw money at Chris Bosh and say, "Look, whatever business venture you've got, we'll cover it. Just launch it." [inaudible 00:35:14] Nobody knows that Chris Bosh launched a clothing line with an actual dope fashion designer called Gloria Boswell. It went to like a Las Vegas show and it did well, but it just never hit like a local market. It's one of those things that I think now, especially with BBL players it's really important for you to surround yourself with ... I wouldn't say just like-minded people, but people that can elevate your game mentally, financially. I mean, I know a lot of people that now work in finance that used to play basketball and they really should be looking at like, "Is there anything I can invest in? Do you recommend doing this?" To really just consider doing more outside of just relying on that one channel of income.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, absolutely. If there's one thing I've learned on Twitter it's the magic happens in the DM's. If you're a young athlete, if you are trying to find those sponsors and you're trying to associate with people like that, just send them a DM. Say you appreciate their work. It's so powerful to establish that connection. I mean, that's how we met, through just Twitter DM's. Establish that connection before.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah. I think another think to kind of add is a large number of players in the BBL are [inaudible 00:36:33] or of African decent and Africa is now that gold mine. There is a huge opportunity for them to take their brand and go over track and field star, Mike Edwards who married to Perri Shakes-Drayton, another track athlete. He went to Big Brother in Nigeria. He was Ovie before Ovie.
Skylar Smith:
The OG Ovie.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, makes a lot of sense.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
He was on before Ovie, but yeah, they went over there. It was to the point he was just so big I need to capitalize on this and savor it for a while.
Brian Bosche:
Well, I opened the show with this, breaking news Friday morning. You may be listening to this at another time, but Sky Sports to your deal with the BBL to have them on TV you mentioned in the BBL a lot of the players have to take on a lot of the creation themselves.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yes.
Brian Bosche:
Rather than the MBA there's all, so many people are creating highlights from them and everything. Now that there is a TV deal, instant reactions, we haven't had a lot of time to process this, but what does this mean to British basketball to actually get a Sky Sports TV deal?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I think it's huge, because Sky on top of the good, if you look at how Sky, just from a Twitter standpoint managed their feed it's all about being the first to report the stuff. When Harry came or Sun score a goal, like they're chopping that up so that the people can react to it, re-tweet it-
Brian Bosche:
Yes.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Engage with it in real time of it happening, because in some instances some people aren't paying for these Pay Per View or don't have the Sky Sports still, so they're literally just watching the ticker. They're literally just watching the ticker to kind of see like what the score is and then when these clips come in it's driving the compensation and just going back to my point now there is so much media out there on Twitter that is helping them, that is helping other people kind of discover it, so I can't ... When it comes to those clips, Sam is one of the only people I see that are sharing clips. That's how I'm staying on top of like grassroots basketball and plays that are coming up in the game. The BBL should really be at the forefront of that, live caught in some of these, because I've been to ... I was sitting front row center at London's Lion's game and I missed that. I'm so embarrassed.
Brian Bosche:
Seriously.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I mean, now that I'm in this role I'm just like, being able to kind of cut up like ten clips from this game, we're not just do stuff for the athletes, but do so much more for the game, for people it's kind of consuming to be like, "Oh, I didn't know that was there, didn't know it was." That was in there. The live stream isn't enough. People need to understand the best bits of the game to at least bring them in.
Skylar Smith:
Yeah, we're seeing people my age, like young millennials, or Gen Z'ers don't even watch basketball on TV. They just go for the highlights on social anyways, so if that's not even an option, makes it really tough.
Brian Bosche:
Does that mean we get a BBL Twitter now? I tweeted you this.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, you did and I gave you eyes.
Skylar Smith:
Is that still your answer-
Brian Bosche:
So yes?
Skylar Smith:
Just eyes?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
It's just eyes. I hope that over the years it will, the conversation on Twitter will grow as a result of the Sky Sports standpoint, but-
Brian Bosche:
Should I hashtag BBL Twitter every tweet when we're doing live covers? Does that actually help or does it not help?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
You and-
Skylar Smith:
Brian will start it by himself.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
You and 100,000 other people, if possible.
Brian Bosche:
I mean, it starts with one. That's all I can do.
Skylar Smith:
You've always got to have one. Okay, let's wrap up. We're going to wrap up with just like some shit head questions.
Brian Bosche:
Some fun, Twitter questions that you get all the time.
Skylar Smith:
These have been very serious, very educational questions and I let Brian get one Tatanum question in. Now I've got to get my shit head questions in. As a professional, where do you land on Twitter beefs? Are they good for teams? Are they good for leagues? Are they good for players? I personally love them. I think they're good for all of them.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Are you for team rivalries?
Skylar Smith:
Oh, yeah. Of course.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Oh, then yeah, then Twitter beefs to team rivalries are of course ... I love metaphors, but I don't have an analogy for this. Yeah, it's basically bitch two version of that rivalry and it's taken to the people and it's just allowing the people to kind of, to manage that rivalry themselves. The beefs, I mean it starts with one or two players and before you know it, you've got war between two sides, because ... I mean, the barber shop, the age on barbership discussion, which I haven't been to barbership in a while. It's a habit, but who's bet? Kobe, Jordan, LeBron, and it still goes on, on Twitter, even after ... And every time Lebron just went into this championship. People are like, "Oh, so where does he rank now?" People all making these cases, but that beef is just ...
Brian Bosche:
It's the life blood of Twitter, I mean, just like-
Skylar Smith:
It is.
Brian Bosche:
The Kevin Ware going. Nick Lewis is nice, but the Sharks are trash. That set off an exposure of BBL Twitter that would have never have happened-
Skylar Smith:
I loved it.
Brian Bosche:
Regardless of what you think of the comments, it set off-
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly.
Brian Bosche:
A conversation, calling Tom Bonnet goofy as hell was hilarious and then Tom Bonnet made t-shirts with the tweet on it. Man, so funny. It's so effective.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, I mean I've seen some subliminal tweets. Some players of the curtain's teams loss, and I'm not going to jump into it, because I don't want no smoke myself.
Skylar Smith:
Oh, Brian's just throwing out names.
Brian Bosche:
Oh, yeah.
Skylar Smith:
Brian does not care.
Brian Bosche:
I'm supportive of everything.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Yeah, as I told you I have to be impartial.
Skylar Smith:
I think you've done a great job on the spot.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, you've toed the line very well. I'm proud of you. It's been good.
Skylar Smith:
Okay, last question. We did get this question from a user on Twitter. I will not reveal who it was. You can go look after. How often do you get asked if you can verify someone? Every day?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I'm just trying to see the frequency on a daily basis. First of all, I'm not even verified, so ...
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, you're like, "Hey, I've got to focus on myself for a while here."
Skylar Smith:
Like if you had that power, you're like, "I'm getting myself verified."
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly. Right now just got to give the insight, because of the pandemic. It's paused, because the business is just actively focused and the elections have just opened up a new can of worms, but as a business we're really focused on just trying to make sure that the information that's being put out there that isn't an opinion, isn't misinformation that's kind of misguiding people, because before we knew it, it was too late because someone had changed a course of the election by sharing ... I've even had to put my mom on the spot because she sends me things on What's App that are just like-
Skylar Smith:
Same.
Brian Bosche:
I think all of us.
Skylar Smith:
I think everyone gets like from their parent's, where you're like, "This is not real."
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
To the point where I've had to educate her on what spam is like, just because you receive the email from Amazon it doesn't ... Look at the email address. This is a Gmail address. Amazon would never send you an email from Gmail.
Skylar Smith:
I mean it's nice-
Brian Bosche:
Well, through the elections ... Go ahead, Skylar.
Skylar Smith:
It's nice that Twitter's actually trying, because we've seen other social's not even really attempt it, so-
Brian Bosche:
I think Twitter's done an incredible job.
Skylar Smith:
I'm really impressed with ... Yeah, I've been so impressed with the job Twitter's done.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
We're not perfect, but we know we're making necessary strides to be able to, not just protect this organization, but like ... Because it is now a specific comms channel. Before it was just TV and radio.
Brian Bosche:
Official.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
But it's official. It's even more so now, like news correspondents are relying on Twitter to be able to find and share information now as soon as possible, like ... I'm not sure if you remember the whole Beirut explosion.
Brian Bosche:
Yes, oh wow.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
I remember seeing that one video, but then being able to watch every news report kind of source that one video to them be able to start their news feed on that like, "We don't know what's happened, but there's been an explosion in Beirut." Three more minutes they've got new information and they added to it.
Brian Bosche:
Yeah, I think Skylar and I ... Twitter's our number one in our hearts.
Skylar Smith:
It's my favorite product.
Brian Bosche:
We love Twitter so much. Absolutely.
Skylar Smith:
Well, Benson, thank you so much for coming on today. This has been so much fun. I hope lots of basketball players can listen and learn a little bit from you.
Brian Bosche:
Yes.
Skylar Smith:
Do you have anything to plug? Where can the people find you?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
You can find me on Twitter, Creative Bonsu. Yeah, I mean ... I don't know what else to say.
Brian Bosche:
Are you-
Skylar Smith:
That's good.
Brian Bosche:
Once the rec centers, once the leisure centers open up are you playing pickup anywhere? You getting on the court?
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
This is the thing, like so one of my biggest beefs has been that like to go and play basketball at random rec centers been ten pounds for one hour session. I'm like, "Are you stupid, bro?"
Skylar Smith:
I think Brian would pay-
Brian Bosche:
That's tough.
Skylar Smith:
A lot more than that.
Brian Bosche:
An obscene amount. I haven't played basketball in seven months, because of the lockdown, so we'll have to play when we get over there and the pandemic is ... When the sweet, sweet vaccine comes through.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Good with that. I mean, I randomly get invited to like random runs, some with like some of our boys. The ones I go to that aren't one of my boys are usually the ones where I'm not re-invited again, because some people just can't take that getting smoked.
Brian Bosche:
That smoke that New York saw with the Maine AAU team.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Exactly.
Brian Bosche:
Don't mess with that Maine AAU team.
Skylar Smith:
This man has been hardened by watch, by having Michael Jordan watch him lose.
Brian Bosche:
Winter's in Maine. Yeah. Well, thanks Benson, so much for coming on. We appreciate it.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
No problem. If it makes a different after that loss we went to is ... So I think that is kind of ...
Brian Bosche:
Huge difference. Let's leave it on that. That's incredible. Love it. Thanks, Benson.
Benson Mensah-Bonsu:
Cool. Appreciate that.
