Outside looking in: Danny Green

Danny Green is a professional basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs. He has won championships at both the professional and collegiate level. 

Social Media Profile: 

• Twitter - @DGreeen_14 - 453k followers
• Facebook - Danny Green - 771k followers
• Instagram - @greenranger14 - 448k followers

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Questions: Joaquin Rodriguez

Joaquin Rodriguez: How and when did you start on Social Media; were you an early adopter/late bloomer?

Danny Green:  I was late bloomer. I got to Instagram late; and somebody had actually made it for me. Twitter I was on it kinda late also. Facebook I guess I was early, but everything else I was late on.

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JR: What accounts do you personally manage versus managed for you?
​​DG: I manage pretty much all of them personally, except for my Facebook fan page. Every one [that] I handle myself, sometimes I'll have some of my PR people or my publicists, if they need me to post promotion stuff,  they'll help me, but for the most part I handle everything and post it myself.​


JR: What is your favorite way (or platform) to engage with your audience (fans)?

​DG: Probably Instagram and Twitter. I use Snap[chat] every once in a while. Now Instagram has IG stories. When I used to be more interactive on it, Twitter was pretty good for questions. Instagram, I think, a lot of people follow more now. Probably Instagram and Twitter are my top two social media platforms that I use the most to interact with the fans.


JR: What is your favorite way to engage with those close to you?

DG:  Sometimes with people who are your friends, use all ways to contact/message them. I would message most of them. Sometime my friends will DM a video or something they've seen on Instagram, or on twitter they'll send it to me via DM, or via Snap, or something like that.  I feel like with those we use all networks to communicate, which makes no sense since we have each other's number, but you know, we use all platforms… Instagram DM's, they'll send some stuff, Snap they'll send some stuff, my messages they'll send some stuff. Those are the main ones they use. They don't use facebook or twitter as much to contact me. But I prefer to use messages when I talk to my close ones.


JR: Do you read comments or engagements on all platforms?

DG: Some of them I do, can't say that I do all. A lot of times I don't pay attention. I know my girlfriend does, she'll find something/see something [comments] that’s inappropriate probably need to get them off the page, and discard some of them/ get them off the page. Some other people will help me I guess discard some of them or delete them off my page. But some of them I read, I mean we all kind of see them, especially when I was younger, now not so much I could care less, I don't pay attention. But the block button and delete have been my favorite buttons, you know as you're growing up, or getting older, maturing, or understanding you can't reply to everybody.


JR: What do your notification settings look like? (As someone who has many followers)

DG: I don’t get any notifications. I turn them all off pretty much. I get a notification when the people I follow make a comments or something like that. Even then, I don't get the notifications. So pretty much all my notifications are off unless I go into the app and see and look, but, usually I keep notifications for the people that I follow. I don't have any "like" notifications on, but if the people I follow comment I think is the only thing that I have on, but I still don't even get those. Or if someone sends me a message, I won't get a full notification of what they said, I'll just give me an icon with who sent me what.

JR: Do you automate anything, or have any of your apps linked?

DG: Yes, they're all linked. So sometimes if I wanted to post on all three then I'll just (my twitter's linked to my facebook) (and my Instagram's linked to my twitter) so if I wanted to post on all three social media, I'll post on my Instagram and I'll link it to my twitter and it will post it on three of them.


JR: How has your use of social media changed throughout the years? Was it easier then, with how simple the apps were, or is it better now with more features?

DG: Well now, its so much easier to stay connected with your friends you grew up with since kindergarten, and their lives, and see what's going on. Before you had no idea, you had to use a phone number or a call, now I can follow what they're doing with their life with the push of a button. It changes a lot of things, not as much face to face interaction, not as much phone call interaction, a lot of people just talk or follow what's going on with your life. And it can be an advantage, it can be a disadvantage sometimes, it goes both ways. I think it’s a great thing that people are able to keep up with your friends and see what's going on and keep updated. But sometimes it takes away from the real conversations with the world and real life stuff that people are missing out on.


JR: What do you do, or how do you react, when you hear news published that's not in a positive light? 

DG: I'll read it… you know, you gotta take the good with the bad, the bad with the good. You gotta understand nobody's perfect. A lot of the stuff or criticisms, or some of the stuff that I can't adapt to, I'll adjust or change to make myself better, but for the most part a lot of that stuff that's BS, keep it moving, delete it, block it, or just keep it moving. It takes some years of maturity and understanding of how social media works, and just being around the game or being around the atmosphere of your job; it comes with the territory, and understanding it, and I guess just understand the level of what you can take in what you can't take serious, and ignore what you can ignore. You gotta keep it moving, keep working, keep pushing, take tons of criticisms (I do), take it as motivation and try to be better.


JR: As a professional athlete, how important do you feel social media is to you, and your image?

DG: I think it's very important, depending on the athlete, and what kind of brand you have or are trying to build. For most guys, it allows you to interact with your fans, it allows them into your life, and allows them to know what you're about. To get people to understand how you live your lifestyle, which I think is very important if you're trying to start a good platform, fan base, or following, and it helps. It helps athletes because we're just seen as basketball players, they don't see us people sometimes. They don't see what we do or what we're into and habits, or certain interests or hobbies. So these things allow us to show people you know "we're humans, and we have hobbies too", and allows other people to say "oh those guy are really cool, that's interesting, I'd like to follow them", and when you get a following that's the next thing for when it comes to sponsorship or building a brand, or having certain people reach out or certain people wanting to work with you, and they get to see what interests or hobbies you have and see that you're actually this type of person or that type of person and if it's someone you (they) can get along with.


JR: If you have business ventures and/or partnerships unrelated to your profession (basketball), do you engage with those accounts as well? 

DG: Of course. We all follow our sponsorships, our businesses, or our people we engage business with. We follow each and keep up with what they're doing, we try to help push, just like we support our friends and family. We try to push their product, we try to push the product with the people we do business with also. It helps them, it helps us, it helps the brand, it helps everybody get along well. It also helps all do business a lot smoother. And just take an interest. Usually if you do business with someone, you're interested in that business. So you want to see how well it does, what people are interested in, how [it] will take, and you follow up on it, you engage in it a lot more after having meetings, sitting down, or engaging in business talks, or actually doing business with that person or that sponsor.


JR: What advice would you give to younger athletes who are just finding their newfound spotlight/audience on social media?

DG: Depending on what kind of brand you wanna build… if you're an entertainer and you wanna get into movies or music or anything like that, or if you're a little more outside your sport, some guys don't care to do it. Some guys are really good at it, some guys are fortunate they don't have to do it. But it’s a platform to form other relationships, to get into other things, because the sport doesn't last forever. You follow these guys like Odell Beckam, you know, he's big into social media, he's all over the place, he built a brand for himself and everybody wants to follow him. He's posting funny stuff, he's doing this he's doing that; these guys are entertainer's as well as being the sports professional. So if you wanna be involved in other things, you want people to sponsor you, you wanna have a big following, you [want to] do more after your career, or get into other things, use the social media platform as a good thing (a big thing), but just be careful with it obviously, There's a lot of things out there. Have somebody follow you, have somebody help you when you post, read, look over things before you post it. Have fun with it and use it as a good platform that’s fan-based.


JR: What perspective or insight do you feel you've gained from being active on social media? And how does that affect your future decisions when it comes to business/shopping/interaction with the public?

DG: That I don't really have to leave my house to shop, and get lots of things done on the internet and social media contact with people. But the most part I've learned are what the fans think about you, what people think, and what's going on. Also, you see a lot of articles and statistics, things that you've never seen or I don't know about. So its good to read up on a lot of the news, watch, and read up news [when] in another country, I don't have to have an English channel or the news, I can just look on Twitter and they get you everything first. With the touch of a button or my hand, I can read, shop, and do all these things very efficiently and quickly. I can see what the feedback is of what people think of these things, and of me. So I've learned a lot, learned to take it in, learned to take the good with the bad, learned to ignore whatever I need to ignore and use those things to help better myself.


JR: Do you "window shop" on social media?

DG: Sure, everybody does. Everybody follows the "@beautifuldestinations"or the "@mymansion" pages, and stuff like that,  certain things people have at their house or they add to their house, certain shopping things. Everybody does a lot of window shopping or "one day I would love to buy this".  I'm a watch guy so I follow all the watch pages and stuff like that; can't have all of them, but you know, you know one day "I would like to have that watch" or "that's nice" so yeah, for sure a lot of window shopping for us as well, but for many normal people too.


JR: Outside of social media, what other platforms do you use, or are effective for you when it comes to engaging with your audience?

DG: I'm trying to think, but there's not many things that's not tied or connected to [social media]. We do a lot of meet & greets, camps, those things.. Things like certain locations where fans could come out and interact with you. Going out in the city, or that night spot and interacting with them.
[Interjection: Even then the camp thing has it's own thing on social media, it's crazy..]
Everything is tied to the social media, it always comes back or that's how word gets out usually now. So word of that, getting of a meet & greet or a camp usually, or other people['s] social media; everything people find out is though social media. Those are my ways of interacting personally or showing up and doing appearances at certain places and interacting with the fans.



Questions?  You can leave a comment below, e-mail me at joaquin@joaquinrodriguez.net, or follow me on social media: Rodriguez Consulting on Facebook or @rodriguezconsulting on Instagram