The rapid growth of social media website Pinterest caught the attention of the GateHouse Media News & Interactive Division in late spring, when the site grew to the fourth largest social media website, in addition to having the most rapid growth of any social media website.
So, from June 1 to August 31, 2012, the News & Interactive Division worked with the top ten GateHouse papers in a study to understand how and if getting on the social media website Pinterest would benefit our papers.
The papers were to pin content from their websites to Pinterest boards twice a day.
The suggested boards:
–Local Weddings
–Your favorite dogs (*Or your current callout)
–Quoteables
–Daily Deals
–Our Recipes
–Your prom photos
–Our best shots (sports photos)
–News from The Daily American (News board)
–Photo of the Day
--From our archives
The News & Interactive Divison provided a Pinterest FAQ that gave papers step-by-step instructions for signing up to Pinterest, creating boards, board recommendations and pinning best practices.
The original metric of success was page referrals. While most sites saw a growth in referrals during the 3 month study, page referrals overall were fairly low for our papers. Those numbers are expected to grow as newsrooms understand their Pinterest audience better and as the site matures. The current metric for success is engagement in terms of repins and followers.
“As with Facebook and Twitter, we need to be where our readers are. Increasingly, they are on Pinterest. In 2015, we don’t want to be saying ‘Maybe we should get on Pinterest,’ when all the signs in 2012 were saying this is something we should pay attention to, experiment with and begin understanding how it may work for us,” said Sarah Corbitt, Content Team Manager with the News & Interactive Division.
The most popular boards were food/recipes, arts and sports.
The Top 10 papers will continue to work with Pinterest with an eye toward what works in their community, focusing on visual content, keeping track of what pins get repined, what boards get the most followers and adjust their strategy accordingly.
Top 10 papers on Pinterest:
The rapid growth of social media website Pinterest caught the attention of the GateHouse Media News & Interactive Division in late spring, when the site grew to the fourth largest social media website, in addition to having the most rapid growth of any social media website.
So, from June 1 to August 31, 2012, the News & Interactive Division worked with the top ten GateHouse papers in a study to understand how and if getting on the social media website Pinterest would benefit our papers.
The papers were to pin content from their websites to Pinterest boards twice a day.
The suggested boards:
–Local Weddings
–Your favorite dogs (*Or your current callout)
–Quoteables
–Daily Deals
–Our Recipes
–Your prom photos
–Our best shots (sports photos)
–News from The Daily American (News board)
–Photo of the Day
--From our archives
The News & Interactive Divison provided a Pinterest FAQ that gave papers step-by-step instructions for signing up to Pinterest, creating boards, board recommendations and pinning best practices.
The original metric of success was page referrals. While most sites saw a growth in referrals during the 3 month study, page referrals overall were fairly low for our papers. Those numbers are expected to grow as newsrooms understand their Pinterest audience better and as the site matures. The current metric for success is engagement in terms of repins and followers.
“As with Facebook and Twitter, we need to be where our readers are. Increasingly, they are on Pinterest. In 2015, we don’t want to be saying ‘Maybe we should get on Pinterest,’ when all the signs in 2012 were saying this is something we should pay attention to, experiment with and begin understanding how it may work for us,” said Sarah Corbitt, Content Team Manager with the News & Interactive Division.
The most popular boards were food/recipes, arts and sports.
The Top 10 papers will continue to work with Pinterest with an eye toward what works in their community, focusing on visual content, keeping track of what pins get repined, what boards get the most followers and adjust their strategy accordingly.
Top 10 papers on Pinterest:
