Tomorrow's Father's Day, and we'd love to play a part in that for you.
We're in the midst of a promotion we're calling Dads 'N' Grads that emphasizes getting a subscription for that special Steelers, Penguins or Pirates fan in your life, whether that's Dad or, in the other direction, the high school and college students currently graduating everywhere.
One of the neatest things about this global community of Pittsburgh sports fans that we've built over nearly seven years is that so much of it has come this way. Son or daughter buys a sub for Dad or Mom. Or it works in the reverse. And within that, as so often gets shared with us, there's an additional bond or bridge built in having something in common, no matter the distance that might be in the mix.
Well, let's keep it going. And growing.
So far, we've sold 33, including five purchased by one subscriber to just give out to random fathers. (We're still trying to figure out how to do that, but it'll happen.) That's not a huge number, but we've always sold the most on the actual weekend of Father's Day.
If you'd like one, they're half-off at $19.99, and here's how to go about it:
1. Tap here.
2. Tap 'BUY A GIFT SUBSCRIPTION'
3. Fill out the super-quick form
And be sure, in that email field, to make it your email and not that of the recipient. This way, you'll be the one receiving the gift redemption code that you can distribute whenever you'd like. The subscription itself begins only when the code's redeemed.
Don’t wait! Go get one!
And thanks in advance for helping this venture grow in the best way possible!
LIVE TWITTER FEED!
We've just added a LIVE staff Twitter feed to the app!
It's easy to access by pushing the bottom right button on the app, one that replaces the previous LIVE page -- collecting live game files -- that very few were using. One tap is all it takes to check out up-to-the-second material from all our reporters wherever we happen to be. Without having to leave the app.
On laptop/desktop, it's just as easy: It's atop the home page on the right side of our floating menu bar.
MILITARY SUBS SOLD: 171
Inspired by Josh DeNinno at Moon Golf Club, we're striving to connect an unprecedented 2,000 military veterans to their favorite teams with free one-year subscriptions in 2021.
So far, we're at 171, including 47 sold this past week.
Thanks to everyone who's been part of this. The cost of a single one-year military subscription is always $20. You can contribute one, or as many as you'd like. And the process couldn't be simpler: Email me directly at DK@DKPittsburghSports.com and let me know how many you'd like, and I, in turn, can thank you personally.
WEEKLY APP TIPS
Sharing ways to make your app experience even better:
• Our new app's represented a massive upgrade over our previous one, but we left behind our ability to reach a lot of you via app alerts, and we're aiming to fix that by reactivating those for Steelers, Penguins and Pirates content. If you'd rather not wait for that, go to your profile by tapping the top left corner of the page, thumb down to PREFERENCES, Notifications and Select. Choose the alerts you'd prefer to receive. Toggle off the ones you don't.
(If you don't want any, obviously, don't do anything.)
Again, this hasn't happened yet. We're hoping it will soon. It's been exasperating being able to reach only 1/20 of what we were reaching before.
Our previous two tips:
• If something ever happens that you really, really don't like on the app -- as happens on every app -- close out of it. Don't just minimize. Close out of it completely. That's done differently, depending on your phone and operating system, but do ... that. (I'm not awesome at technical advice.) Once you do, reopen the app, and it's all golden again.
• Go get an avatar! Go to your profile, tap the little camera icon near the top, insert any image that's 300x300 or smaller, tap SAVE, and that's it. This will now show as your image on comments, as well as the top left corner of your home page.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our page views for the past week were 311,874, down 8% from the previous week and, for a second consecutive week, our lowest such mark of 2021. Our most-read original piece was my 21 Takes column, at 9,089. Broken down by team, articles on the Steelers brought 22.8% of our traffic, the Penguins 19.3%, the Pirates 18.8%.
• Our new subscribers for the past week were at 53, up 26 from the previous week.
• Our new app downloads for the past week were 57 for Apple, up 4 from the previous week, and 31 for Android, down 7 from the previous week.
• Our podcast downloads for the past week were 89,572, down 1% from the previous week.
• We're at 41,377 (+93) followers on Twitter, we're at 37,147 (-9) followers on Facebook, we're at 14,595 (+22) followers on Instagram, and we're at 4,207 (+361) followers on YouTube. These figures are just for our official company account on each platform, not for us as individuals.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Random geographic fun, to be read in an Alex Trebek voice: This country's the farthest from the U.S. of all those that rank in our top 10. It ranked seventh with 111 active users of our app in the past week.