The Los Angeles Lakers are among the most popular sports franchises in the world. Fans of the Lakers range from all across the world, making their love for the team known.
None though may love the Lakers more than a person known for his up-to-date coverage of all things Purple and Gold on Instagram. He’s the founder of LakersAllDayEveryday, the biggest Lakers fan page on Instagram followed by former and current Lakers.
Rounding out to over 410,000 followers, Aron Cohen turned his passion for the Lakers into a full-time job. Now, nine years into running the page, it’s taken a life of its own.
Cohen sat down with Lakers Nation to go through the beginnings and challenges of running the page plus insight on a recent Anthony Davis workout.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Lakers Nation: How did the idea of the page come from and when did you just start?
Aron Cohen: I started the page in 2013. Instagram wasn’t really a big thing at the time, and it was August, so was in the offseason. Lakers weren’t doing anything, there were no games [since] it was the offseason. It was right after Kobe tore his Achilles and it kind of started going downhill. But I was just young and like, I had so much energy and I just wanted to be able to put my, you know, excitement and feelings somewhere where other people can relate. And like I said at the time, I was only 14 years old. And I just started to because I love the Lakers. It wasn’t because I wanted to have a certain amount of followers and because I want to even turn into a business the way it is right now but it kind of took off after I became obsessed with what I was doing.
LN: You kind of talked about [it but] Instagram was just so different, social media in general back then was just so different. What were some of those challenges early on in terms of building your audience?
AC: Yeah. So I mean, it was a brand new platform and it wasn’t really developed, meaning there was no real strategy to grow compared to right now, you know, Instagram is and social media as a whole is used as a business tool. People run their entire businesses through social media. So like back then, people weren’t really doing that. And like I said before, I wasn’t even trying to like ‘Oh I’m going to make this make money.’ I was literally 14 and I was like, ‘I want to have fun.’ And the biggest challenge was growing with the platform. It was a challenge, but also like a blessing because it wasn’t as competitive as it is now. Obviously, it was competitive before but like if you look at it now, there are like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Lakers fanpages and fanpages in general that are constantly trying to grow, whether its by ads, commenting here and there, doing cross collabs and things like that. There’s a blueprint. But when I was growing my own page there was no real blueprint. And like when younger people ask me for some advice on how to grow, like I’m happy that I will show them the steps that I took and how to actually grow. But it really comes down to being obsessed with what you do. And I spend like two or three hours per day no matter what like school, whether I was on vacation, like anywhere, anywhere I was. I would always make sure that I was on two, three hours a day making content and like learning seeing what people would like, what they don’t like how they respond to certain things just constantly studying, it’s a lot of studying.
LN: What’s your day-to-day during the season? How are you kind of preparing for games, news? What’s your strategy with that?
AC: Preparation is everything. That’s kind of what I learned when I worked for ESPN a couple of years ago. I was on the social team and their biggest thing is preparation for any possible outcome, any event, anything, they are on it. So what I do is I’ll have folders of content ready for any scenario. For example, this upcoming season LeBron is most likely going to pass [Kareem] for points. So I have like a bunch of stuff ready. I have content. I have merch. Same thing goes for Kyrie. If he ends up being traded I have merch. I have exactly what I’m going to write. Every follow-up, highlights, reunion with LeBron. Everything is preparation and the thing about social media or what I do is that… I would say like 75 or 80% of my content is thrown away because you have to prepare for every possible outcome and there’s only one outcome for each event. You can only use one thing when there’s so many different possible outcomes. And the reason why it’s good to be prepared is because you always want to be one of the first, if not the first, to have things up and start trends and just be on top of it. That’s why people want to follow. Everyone wants everything fast and that’s why I always want to be prepared for any outcome.
LN: Just from following your page, I’ve noticed the positivity in posts. Especially this season I noticed you were still positive… Where does that come from, that positivity?
AC: Right. I mean, I forget to mention that’s another reason why my page has done so well is because it’s not like a robot behind this page. It’s very obvious that there’s a person behind this page and this person has feelings and is clearly emotional, just like everyone else who follows the page. And I think that me putting myself in their shoes, whether that has to do with the Lakers or whatever it is, when I find an account who has a passionate person behind it, it’s very easy to connect. There are so many Laker fans and there are so many passionate die-hard Laker fans and I’m one of them. For me to just be myself, it’s something that these followers can connect to and really feel like they’re a part of something because we all pretty much have the same exact emotions when things happen. Like when Kobe passed, everyone had the same exact emotion. People would ask me ‘is it crazy that I’ve been crying or can’t stop thinking about him, it’s been like two months, three months.’ And it would just show that it was totally normal and that we all can relate. In my opinion, I think people just want to relate. They go to social media and a big part of is they want to feel like they belong to something and they want to relate. Like they’re not the only one doing this thing that’s going through this, not the only one who’s feeling this way because this happened. It’s like they just want to relate. And me being a positive person outside of the Lakers and just in life and it’s very genuine people can tell that like nine years in like you can’t fake it for this long if you’re like trying to be someone else, people are eventually going to catch on, people are very smart and they’ll realize. I just try to take my mindset in life and apply it to the Lakers and my page because before I even made the page that’s just the person I was and am and I think that a lot of people relate to that because I mean, who doesn’t want to be positive? Who doesn’t want to say positive motivating things?
LN: And even with that positivity, there were times [when] you were just transparent too. I remember after bad losses [last season], you just posted, I don’t know what to think about this team. Is that just the same thing as you’re putting yourself in their shoes basically?
AC: 100%. You never want to follow someone’s that’s just fake. Just saying things because they have to stay on brand, I guess. I have one thing that I’ve been working on in the past couple of years is like just keeping it real. Like obviously I’m a very positive person, but like not everything is good and not everything that happens with the Lakers is good. Especially with Russ, that was like a really big challenge. As long as he’s on the Lakers, I’m going to support him. And that’s kind of a hot topic because a lot of a lot of fans are already like, put him aside, they’ve written him off but my thing is as long as he’s on the Lakers, I’m going to support him because that’s a big component to player success, if fans and media support them. So my job as the biggest Lakers fan page in the world is to make sure we are supporting the players we currently have as best as possible and also when trades happen and things like that, we’ll send them off in a classy manner. As much as possible I want to just pass along that message that we can be classy in support of the players that we have right no matter how bad they’re playing.
LN: You’ve also had interactions with Lakers players. What [have] some of those interactions [been like]?
AC: Yeah, that’s one of the coolest parts of running this brand is the communication that I am having with former Lakers, current Lakers. I spent, it’s kind of my life right now it’s my full time job to run this place, I spent so much time covering and talking about these guys that to have an actual relationship with them it makes it everything for me. And when these players follow my page, it’s so much validation like what I’m doing is good because like I said earlier, there are so many fan pages, so many websites, forums that are out there and to have these players follow mine out of all of them is really big. It motivates me to keep going and it’s amazing. For example, I was in Orlando a couple of years ago, I think it may have been actually like one year ago here I was in Orlando and [Anthony Davis] follows me and he saw me in the crowd and after the game he came up to me, gave his jersey and signed it. And we’ve like talked from time to time, we’ve seen each other a couple of times in person. But just being able to have that relationship knowing that he follows me and supports what I do, it’s an amazing feeling because at the end of the day, I am also a fan just like anyone else. I’m not different. I love these guys as much as everyone else, maybe even more. And being able to actually have a relationship with them and they know who I am, it’s very humbling.
LN: How was that experience like with AD? I know you went live with him as well and obviously meeting him in Orlando and you met him I think recently as well. How has he been?
AC: He’s been good. He looks really good and I was at his workout and he looked very, very sharp. He lost some weight. He’s in good spirits because he had a very rough year, especially with the media, fans, everything, about how he can’t stay healthy. He’s a human at the end of the day. People don’t realize before you meet these guys or if you’re ever able to meet these athletes, you’ll realize very quickly that they’re just like us, they’re humans, they see everything. And I always talk about that on my page. These players, especially on my platform, like the ones that follow, they will see what you guys are saying and it’ll affect them. So I always try to make sure like keep them up and let them know that we support them and make sure they’re really hearing from all of us.
LN: Are there any other players that you’ve had close interactions with recently?
AC: Yeah, the closest one has been Quinn Cook. I’m still in touch with him. We talk all the time, we’ll FaceTime, we’ll play 2k, I’ll go to his house, we’ll go get food. He’s a really, really good, down-to-earth guy and it started with my page. He followed me the day the Lakers signed him. Eventually, he sent me tickets, gave me family passes. We bonded over Kobe, that was an unfortunate time that Kobe passed. But him, I have talked to Dwight [Howard], Danny Green. Austin Reaves has been a really cool guy. I did an interview with him. Cole Swider. There’s all these guys that I think that they see my page and they can tell that it’s just pure love for the Lakers and them, they want to be a part of it. So I think that’s why I have many former and current players following.
LN: The interactions have been great with them? Is what I’m basically figuring out.
AC: Yeah. They just know it’s love on the side. So because there’s so much garbage online with fans, when they’re able to see real fans who will support them no matter what. That’s what it was like with Malik Monk. The day he signed with the Kings, I sent him a message and he was like, ‘yeah, bro, I appreciate you. You always kept it real.’ Totally good I hope you do well in Sacramento. We wish the best for you and we had a great time with you this one year. But like just always keeping it real. I always keep in mind that these guys are human and they fall in love just like we do.
