Site Stuff: A very special sponsorship available

Want to be a big-time player in our lineup?

For the first time, DK Pittsburgh Sports is offering a title sponsorship to our venture. That means top billing on the app, on the site, on our alerts, on our social media, and potentially more depending on what best suits your business. We've got a cumulative reach no one else in this market can match.

We don't know everyone else's page views since they don't make theirs public, but we publish ours every single day, as well as all kinds of other data in this very weekly feature. But we're beyond confident that there isn't a sports media app that's got an active Pittsburgh-rooted user base of 18,371. With a presence in 52,177 individual devices. And on Twitter, if you add up our company account plus our top five individual accounts, the follower total is 291,623. That's more than the Post-Gazette, the Tribune-Review or The Athletic's local branch.

Our promotional tweets, such as the ones we do for GetGo and Mike's Beer Bar, average 30,000-plus impressions. That's a lot of eyeballs at a fraction of the cost of TV or radio.

I'll say it again: No one can match this. And we're inviting you to be a big part of it.

Why now?

Simple: Everything's going on here now. Within a couple weeks, our state-of-the-art custom app will be out, as well as an accompanying new website and other platforms. We'll also be greatly expanding our free content, with an aim of not having the place feel so forbidding to potential newcomers. As a result, we're expecting a significant impact on our overall readership.

For nearly a year, you might've noticed, we haven't pushed sponsorships. This is the reason. We wanted to wait for the right opportunity at the right time to maximize what we've got. We talked about it last year, but we wanted the app. We talked about it early this spring, but coronavirus came along. Now, one's finally coming, and the other's at least abating. We'll have sports soon enough, and that excitement alone will be a big boost.

Come join us. Email my wife: Dali@DKPittsburghSports.com

WELCOME BACK, LONG!

Our company keeps growing and, for a fourth straight week, so does our staff: Please join all of us at DK Pittsburgh Sports in proudly welcoming back photographer Long Hong!

Longtime readers will recall Long's work for us on a variety of sports, most frequently the Riverhounds. He's never been full-time with us, and he won't be now -- the man's got a super-serious day-job -- but he's available enough to help us with specific shooting assignments we'll be needing moving forward, and he's almost as good at what he does as he is as a human. Been part of our little family here for a very long time.

My favorite shot of Long's for us came in 2017, and it might not even have been his best that day:

If you'd like to see more of Long's work, check out his Instagram page.

Of course, Long joins three other new additions in Ramon Foster, Jeff Hartman and Mike Kovak. We're still seeking a long-form features writer, as well, and are accepting professional applications on that front.

THE APP'S HOME STRETCH

The app's rounding third base.

Our 25 volunteer beta testers -- thanks again to all of you! -- continue to pick away at the test version, the developers continue to put the final pieces in place, and the target for the full release is the week of June 15, which will be just in time for the restart of sports.

It's been a long process, and it's come with expected bumps, but the objective here wasn't small, and you'll see why very soon. We're confident you'll find it was worth it.

BIG WEEK FOR MILITARY

We sold an amazing 62 military subscriptions in the past week, including three bulk purchases of 10 each.

And so, in the five months since Josh DeNinno at Moon Golf Club challenged our subscribers to step up with 1,500 veteran subscription purchases in 2020, commemorating his course's 15th anniversary, our count is at 802. More than halfway home, obviously.

They're $19.99 for the annual and can be bought individually right here. Or, if you’re interested in making a bulk purchase, please email me directly: DK@DKPittsburghSports.com.

BACK TO BUSINESS

• Our daily page views, averaged out over the past week, were 53,148. The general goal with this figure is to average 100,000, but that's obviously not going to be realistic for a while.

• Our most-hit original article of the past week was Ramon's column on racism, at 14,637. The Penguins accounted for 81,441 page views, the Pirates 77,899, the Steelers 61,041, and Pitt 6,449.

• We're at 36,511 (+58) followers on Twitter, we're at 33,119 (+36) page likes on Facebook, we're at 14,484 (+24) followers on Instagram. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.

• To join our social media army and help us increasing our reach on Facebook and Twitter, please email Hunter Homistek at Hunter@DKPittsburghSports.com.

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