All That Glitters Isn't Gold

Los Angeles Lakers

Number of Tweets: 35.9 K
Number of Followers: 4.65 M

The Lakers have one of the biggest followings of any NBA team in the country (4.65 M followers), with fans all across the country. But despite their massive fandom, and the good-feels coming from the farewell season of NBA great Kobe Bryant, the purple and gold are quite awful (again). This presents a challenge to the franchise to continue to engage their fans while the team fails to perform well on the court.

The account has all the makings of storied franchise: the cover photo boasts their 16 franchise championships (good for 2nd all time), and the classic "L" logo in the profile. Scrolling through the feed, it's not surprising that almost every tweet discusses their star, Kobe Bryant. Most posts are game updates and highlights, with few retweets, "off-the-court" material, or direct response to fan accounts. The team is using a standard hashtag, #GoLakers, for the season, and a special one (#KB20) for Kobe's curtain call.

Average Score: 3
Aesthetics: 3.5
The Lakers have a classic look and distinguished colors. They feature both, as well as their storied success, on their account profile. Many tweets have pictures associated with them. Points lost for a lack of eye-popping visuals that stand apart from the norm.
Useful/Informative Content: 3.5
This season, game updates for the Lakers means a lot of talking about losing. But nonetheless, the account manages to keep followers updated with in-game and post-game stats and highlights. Points lost for a lack of "off-the-court" content.
Creativity: 3
The account uses emojis and supplements tweets with pictures that feature stylization unique to the franchise. Aside from that, there are no memes, clever or witty tweets, or other creative content.
Engagement: 2
Other than the fact that many of the tweets get a good amount of likes and retweets (mainly due to content baiting with Kobe), there is very little engagement with the account followers. There is one news account that the Lakers often retweet, along with the occasional player. But the account fails to features fans in almost any way.