One at a time.
It's our company's principal goal for 2023, as I've typed here a few times, to find 1,000 totally new subscribers to our site. And whether or not that sounds like a lot to anyone, I can assure that it involves a lot of work.
Here's something I found absolutely amazing:
Oh, for real. That came my way via Facebook a couple days ago from Lisa Bohm-Levitsky, and it's exactly what any Original Lunatic could easily figure out that it is: She was our very first subscriber. And though I had only the faintest memory of this -- the brain was kinda mush at the time -- that's a copy of my emailed response to her, and the date/time all match. (And yeah, all we had was a brand new PayPal account with which to accept payments back then!)
First order of business: We'll be committing one of those Building Bricks at our Downtown HQ/shop to Lisa. Or, to be accurate, we'll be committing the one Brick that'd been donated in 2022 by one especially thoughtful subscriber who asked only that we keep it for a special occasion that might arise. I'd think this qualifies.
Second order: Keep the priority where it's always belonged.
I could never know what percentage of our readers, viewers or listeners are here because of a personal, one-on-one anyone here at DK Pittsburgh Sports has made, but my guess is it would be strikingly high. We answer every correspondence in every form, whether via email, social media or a wave from the sidewalk on Fifth Avenue. We invite people to join our community, not just for the original content but also for the Asylum forum that connects fans of the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates to their favorite teams from all over the world. And the thinking from there, logically, goes that they'll share with a family member or friend or co-worker, and so on and so on and so on. Or better yet, they'll buy a gift subscription for that same purpose.
If you're interested in the latter, a gift subscription can be bought individually right here. If you're interested in gift subscriptions in bulk -- maybe to help those who tell us all too frequently they can't afford one -- then email me directly: DK@DKPittsburghSports.com!
If you follow any of us on social media, including the staff, you'll see a push like never before for new subscribers. It's no accident. We feel like, approaching our ninth anniversary and soon the 10th, we want to make sure we're keeping a new wave of readers coming through even while respecting those who've been with us ... well, from the actual, literal very start!
INSIDE THE WORKS
• Speaking of Original Lunatics, our great friend Chris Dolnack has yet again extended our business partnership with ProjectChildSafe.org, and we couldn't be more grateful! Been with us since the beginning, and we've never once taken it for granted!
• Hey, this very feature's available for a name-branding sponsorship, as is Danny Shirey's excellent Drive to the Net hockey analysis! Let me know!
• Adam Bertram and BoomPress have done work to speed up the reaction time on the live commenting platform, which I trust has been noticed by everyone using it. Even when we had simultaneous Penguins and Pirates games in the past few days, it was moving well. It's not perfect yet, but it'll get there.
• Big plans ahead, via word from Adam, for our commenting platform. Lots of fun new additions, including the vital -- and long-awaited -- ability for readers to embed photos, videos, GIFs, etc. We can do that now, but only through pasting of URLs, and that's not ideal.
• Little more than a week away from the April 29 first anniversary of the HQ/shop ... and our first-ever sidewalk sale to celebrate!
• Travel on tap: Alex Stumpf will finish out the ongoing St. Louis-Denver trip with the Pirates. He'll also have the D.C. leg of the next trip, and Chris will fly to St. Petersburg, Fla., for the leg that follows.
BACK TO BUSINESS
• Our page views for the past week were 525,976, with our weekly goal being 500,000. Our most-read original piece was my column calling for Ron Hextall's firing, at 11,770. Broken down by team traffic, articles on the Penguins brought 22.9% of our readership, the Pirates 22.1%, the Steelers 13.0%, Penn State 1.2%, and Pitt 0.9%.
• On the multimedia front, our podcast downloads for the past week were 135,378, with our weekly goal being 150,000, and our YouTube video views for the past week were 160,179, with our weekly goal being 150,000.
• Our company social media accounts are at 49,484 followers on Twitter, 39,217 on Facebook, 23,022 on YouTube, 14,871 on Instagram.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com