One of our more eagle-eyed subscribers asked yesterday in my weekly Live Qs session why I haven't been on Twitter as much lately.
This was my response, verbatim: 'I'd like to have us off Twitter entirely other than promotional fare, to be honest, and maybe we'll get there. I've begun taking that approach myself when I'm covering a game, as you seem to have noticed. Yeah, you'll see a LOT less giving away of the product and a LOT more of pushing people to come here."
Seems like a no-brainer, huh?
Well, blame it on the one who lost his brain over this that it ever reached the extreme that anyone would think to ask the above question.
Twitter can be intoxicating. I'm not any exception to that, or I wouldn't have 140,000-plus followers on there. It's instant reaction in a tidal wave, no matter how large or small the subject at hand. In all of my years in the media business, especially as it pertains to sports, I've never seen a platform have its impact.
That said, Twitter doesn't pay the bills. You do that.
As in, YOU.
And everyone on this staff, myself included, would do well to remember that. Meaning that it's got to be understood that our original content's always got to remain original to you. Meaning our insider-type news, our insight and, of course, the actual hard content itself like video, audio that we've accumulated on company assignments.
We had discussions about this internally. Then they became debates. Then ... let's just say it's a young staff, and most people in that age range see Twitter as larger than life. And the conclusion I'd reached was that this was an even bigger problem than I'd thought, that we might be as passionate -- or even more passionate -- about putting stuff out on Twitter as we are here. So I started to slide to a stance that'd just end Twitter participation altogether, except for promoting our app/site.
Long story short: Cooler heads, led by Dali and Taylor Haase, prevailed.
We came away with this:
• We'll tweet only material that's what we often refer to as 'playing-for-ties' news. Meaning every outlet's getting it at the same time. Press releases. Press conferences. An event in a game. It shows we're alert and involved, and it doesn't reduce our Twitter presence to nothing but a grand sales job.
• We'll commit to YOU before any of this. Even with the 'playing-for-ties' news, you'll see it on an app alert before we put it on Twitter.
• We'll still do that grand sales job. We'll let people on Twitter know what we've got here -- including our unrivaled global community of fans of the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates -- and we'll urge them to bring their readership and commenting here to our app/site. This is already underway, and it's been effective for most of us, crazy-effective for Taylor. We've already more than doubled our usual number of new subscribers this month.
• We pledge that you're always our No. 1 priority for personal interaction, whether it's in comments or the Live Qs or, if you come see us at the Downtown HQ/shop, face to face. And when we see someone on social media asking us a sports question, we'll steer them here.
A lot of this might seem obvious. A no-brainer, like I said. But it was very much necessary, and I believe it'll strengthen the bond we already have with our readership right here on the only platform that matters to this company.
Make sense?
We can talk about this further in comments, if you'd like.
ON THE NFL DRAFT
The Steelers pick at No. 17 overall, barring a trade, Thursday night upon the opening of the NFL Draft. I'll be leading our coverage of this seismic sporting event all week long, beginning with coverage of the annual pre-draft press conference Monday on the South Side with Mike Tomlin and Omar Khan, then continuing with columns leading up to the pick, then after the pick, plus podcasts and live episodes of The Ramon Foster Show.
Corey Crisan, who'll be much more involved with the Steelers this year, and Chris Halicke will both be on the South Side, as well.
ON PENN STATE
Cory Giger's status is now part-time with us, but nothing's changing about our expectation for Penn State coverage in the 2023 and beyond.
It's like this: You'll still see the same 2-3 stories per week from Cory that we've always sought on both the Penn State and Pitt fronts, you'll still see Cory covering all Penn State football games home and road, and you'll still see him at whatever bowl game the Nittany Lions earn -- just as he was in Pasadena for a week in January for the Rose Bowl.
The reason for the status change was that we need all full-time employees available for work in Pittsburgh, moving about on Steelers, Penguins and Pirates to meet the high standard we've set for our three foundational beats. That's not a fit for Cory, who lives in Altoona, so he professionally declined. He had several other roles for us behind the scenes, all of which are being redistributed, but the Penn State part's untouched.
And all of the above applies to Pitt, too. It's been a long, long time since we've had anyone doing either Pitt or Penn State on some pure 100% basis. That's actually really rare in the industry as a whole.
INSIDE THE WORKS
• We're exactly a week away from the April 29 first anniversary of the HQ/shop ... and we're planning on having our first-ever sidewalk sale to celebrate! (That'll be the subject of the next Site Stuff, as well!)
• 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. It can still be better, though. We'll keep working.
• 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.
• If you ever see that blank video screen showing up on your app shortly after opening it, just hit the X in the top left corner and proceed. If we knew what that was, we'd rocket it the thing to the moon. Happens to me all too often.
• Travel on tap: Alex Stumpf will travel to D.C. for the Pirates' series against the Nationals next weekend, and Chris Halicke will do likewise after that to St. Petersburg, Fla., for the series against the high-flying Rays.
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 Point Park University Friday Insider reporting Ron Hextall's imminent firing, at 11,566. Broken down by team traffic, articles on the Pirates brought 20.8% of our readership, the Penguins 17.3%, the Steelers 14.9%, Pitt 1.4%, and Penn State 1.0%.
• On the multimedia front, our podcast downloads for the past week were 160,580, with our weekly goal being 150,000, and our YouTube video views for the past week were 132,772, with our weekly goal being 150,000.
• Our company social media accounts are at 49,555 followers on Twitter, 39,230 on Facebook, 24,162 on YouTube, 14,870 on Instagram.
• We make mistakes. If you see one, email: Typos@DKPittsburghSports.com
• Anything you need, including lost/forgotten passwords, email: Help@DKPittsburghSports.com