This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Pinterest is hard to ignore. We've been watching it, deciding where and how we fit in, and whether joining the craze makes sense for The Salt Lake Tribune. Visit http://www.pinterest.com/sltrib for our decision.
Here in the newsroom, we are pretty plugged in to social media. As the social media watchdog, I am always looking for emerging platforms and virtual communities where our readers are gathering. We want to engage in those communities and share our content in new venues, where potential readers can discover what we have to offer and give feedback on what they want to see.
Pinterest is unique among social networks in its largely female following. Nearly 82% of Pinterest's users are women, according to comScore. Compare that to 57% for Facebook, 50% on LinkedIn and 29% on Google+. Our audience at sltrib.com is just 38% female. We want to do better.
We have great content that appeals to women, but perhaps we aren't doing a good enough job telling them it's there. Popular Pinterest topics — food and restaurants, local activities, shopping, home decor, fashion and beauty, gift ideas, travel destinations, vintage photography — are things we cover all the time. So we created boards showcasing Utah restaurants and bars, things to do in Salt Lake City and beyond, food reviews and recipes from our staff and historic photos from our A Look Back series.
We also wanted to share some of our exclusive content and the great news we cover, so we added boards for Pat Bagley's cartoons, the Utah Jazz, Real Salt Lake, our 2002 Winter Olympic Games, the beautiful Utah outdoors, our snow sports and even a bonus section on ourselves — the history of The Salt Lake Tribune. We plan to expand our boards as we venture into new coverage areas, and we hope to use Pinterest to share your photos and pins by creating public boards.
Curious? Get a friend on Pinterest to send you an invitation, set up an account and add the Pin It button to your browser. Browse sites and pin things to your boards. Look around Pinterest and like, comment on or repin things from other users' boards. Like what someone is doing? Follow them. It's that easy. Just be prepared to lose complete track of time.
Kim McDaniel is a web producer and social media coordinator for The Salt Lake Tribune. She can be reached at kimm@sltrib.com or @tivogirl on Twitter. Find us:
pinterest.com/sltrib