Why should journalists and media organizations take note of Pinterest? Simple. Women love it.

In case you’ve been under a rock, Pinterest is an online pinboard for expressing yourself by pinning photos of things you like on virtual bulletin boards. It was developed back in 2009.  But in the last few months it has become the latest social media darling. It seems like every time I’m on Twitter I come across another story about Pinterest. For example, bloggers are writing about how to use it for business or even for news.

Women love Pinterest

According to Tech Crunch, Pinterest has more than 10.4 million registered users, including 2 million daily Facebook users. A graph from Inside Network’s AppData shows a 30-day increase in Pinterest members that displays a strong spike. Most of the users are women.

Why should this matter to journalists or news organizations? Women readers have proved illusive to traditional news organizations for decades, despite the fact that females make roughly 80 percent of the buying decisions in America. In today’s challenging transition for journalism, news organization cannot afford to lose a single reader — male or female — especially ones coveted by advertisers.

As I wrote on this blog back in 2009, news organizations’ migration to the web has largely failed to attract female readers despite the fact that women are online as much or more than men. My post then explained that news efforts to woo women largely focuses on treating issues important to women as features (not news), expecting women to appreciate the same topics and format that men do, or trivializing subjects women care about if men don’t see them as relevant.

Will embracing Pinterest reverse this trend? Probably not. But what it will do is put a news brand where lots of potential readers are and give them an experience they enjoy.

People use Pinterest essentially in the same way as they’d use a physical bulletin board. For example, people might pin pictures of furniture they like to jog their own memories when they redecorate. Others use it to list quotes they love or pictures they enjoy. Anything that’s visual is fair game.

People can follow others on Pinterest if they like what they post. They also can repin posts, which is similar to retweeting on Twitter. Repining is to take the content another has shared and share it with your followers as a means of affirming the original sharer. Pinterest is so new that users notice — and feel kind of pleased — when someone repins their stuff. They also can like things others have shared, a la Facebook.

How could a news organization use Pinterest

To me, this offers potential for local news organizations as a tool to engage — particularly with women.

I’d suggest local news organizations start by  doing a local story about Pinterest. Who is using in their community? The news organization could create its own Pinterest account and search for local pinners to use as sources in this story — and beyond.  Need a local woman to interview for a story about kitchen makeover? Find her on Pinterest. She probably has pinned all the things she wants in her own makeover. Need women with children to interview for a story? Search on Pinterest. Wonder how men are using Pinterest? Find them there.

Start their own “What (insert name of your community) People Love” pinboard on the news organization’s account and repin pictures and quotes from people in their community onto that board. The news organization can open up the site to allow others to pin to it, creating a way to engage directly with community members.

Once news organizations got started, I suspect interest would grow, and news staffers would likely come up with even better ways to use Pinterest. Mind you, I’m suggesting Pinterest is part of a comprehensive engagement effort, not the only tool in the box.

News with a dose of relationship

What I suspect appeals to women about Pinterest is the sharing. Pinning something is a way to say: Here is what I like, and I want to tell you because that bonds us. And if you like it, too, even better. I have found a kindred spirit. This may not be an impulse all people have, but 10 million and growing is a sizable swath of people.

In essence, Pinterest could give news organizations a way to “give women news with a dose of relationship,” as I advised in 2009 on this blog.

Certainly, it is true that fashion, decorating, and crafts predominate on Pinterest. None of these topics necessarily fit the standard definition of news. But, as I wrote in October on this blog, perhaps news organizations need to redefine what they consider news to include “what people share.” In addition, what I find so attractive about Pinterest for news organizations is that we do not quite yet know its potential. All we know is this: Women like it. Lots of them.

Already, some women are using Pinterest as a political activism tool. For example, consider this pinboard lambasting Rush Limbaugh for calling a law student a “slut” for supporting President Barack Obama’s new policy on contraceptive coverage. This board created a spot for women to like the pinboard much as they’d like a Facebook status or show even more support by repining it or following the board. If Pinterest continues to be used this way, it offers a virtual way for women — or anyone — to protest, share opinions, talk about issue. Gee, that sounds a lot like news to me.

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“Great entrepreneurs do not really see the future as much as the create the future they envision.”

That’s a quote from MIT professor Michael A. Cusumano from a piece he wrote on the late Steve Jobs, but I think it offers some insight for the future of journalism in 2012. I think we in the industry need to heed this advice and create a future for journalism — rather than just wait and see what happens.

If I were creating this future, a large component of it would include offering greater customization of news and information for readers.

Read the rest of this post at Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab.

Here are some interesting links from around the blogosphere and tips about tools that I thought you might find useful. Enjoy.

CommSpace: A new social network just for media/journalism/communications professors, students, and researchers has launched! It’s run by Sage Publications, and I’m one of four students working with Sage to get the word out about it. We’re hoping it will be a place to share ideas, get suggestions for research ideas, make connections with people who share our interests. Check it out. (And while you’re there, be sure to join my Social Media Researchers group. Lot’s of good info.)

Twitter study: About a year ago, I tweeted links to a questionnaire about Twitter use, and some (many) of you graciously filled it out. Finally, I have results. Here is a link to an article in Computers in Human Behavior that came from the data. (Note: Whether you can read the whole thing will depend on whether your university has access to the journal.) Thanks to all who filled out the questionnaire!

Just for fun: This cartoon posted on Mashable has me laughing out loud (for real!) Need a chuckle? Check it out.

More laughs: Here is fun blog post about the “stages of Twitter” from “I tried it for a day. It’s sooo stupid” to “Twitter is down for a second! NOOO!” Enjoy.

How to innovate: Some sage (can I say sage about someone so young?) advice from FourSquare founder Dennis Crowley about innovation, courtesy of Gigaom. Best takeaway: “Don’t let anyone tell you your ideas don’t work.”

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I promised this post in early summer, but I’ve been waiting until I had a clear sense of what life on FourSquare is like before I wrote it. I feel like I’ve been on FourSquare long enough now to give a sense of what kind of things people should stay clear of. So, here are my suggestions for the three rules of etiquette of FourSquare.

Feel free to post a comment with your own FourSquare pet peeves or to disagree with one of mine.

1. Think before you sync: If you forget every other rule, remember this one. Technology allows us to do many cool things — including syncing, but that doesn’t mean we have to do them. What is syncing? It’s when you set up one social medium to automatically update another social medium. Good idea, right? Well, sometimes.

I had synced my Twitter to my Facebook page at one point, so every tweet turned up as a Facebook status update. The problem was: My followers on Twitter are very different from my Facebook friends, so I was sending messages to the wrong audience. That gets annoying quick, as a real-life friend cautioned me.

Same thing can happen with FourSquare. The application allows you to update Twitter or Facebook every time you check in, get a mayorship, lose a mayorship, earn a badge. You may be tempted to do this. Resist. Resist. Resist. None of your Twitter followers want to know how many times a day you go to Starbucks.

My rule: I set up my FourSquare so that the only time it updates my Twitter account is when I earn — or lose — a mayorship. My thinking is this is a rare enough occurrence that it won’t annoy. (Hope that’s true.) Also, syncing this aspect enables me to connect with my FourSquare friends on Twitter.

For example, when I lost the mayorship of the Tim Horton’s coffee shop near campus, the woman who won it announced her new mayorship online. I @replied her, joking that she had ruined my day for stealing Tim Horton’s. She consoled me. Granted, this is hardly a high-level form of relationship, but we made a connection. Now she is someone I know on Twitter, not just a follower.

For another look at the sync or not debate, read this post by Steve Buttry.

2. Search before you add a venue: At one point, a Mobil Mart near my house was on FourSquare three ways. One with a street address. One without a street address. One as Mobile Mary (not Mart). I know how this happens. You go to check in, and the location you’re at (such as this Mobile station) doesn’t immediately pop up in the FourSquare queue. So you decide to add it. But you’re on your cell phone, so you make a typo because you’re typing quickly or your can’t remember the street name. Then two more people do the same thing.

The result is: Multiple check-in locations for the same spot.

Why is this a problem? Well, in the whole scheme of problems such as childhood cancer and world poverty, it’s not. But in the microcosm of the social media world, it’s annoying because when other people go to check in, they aren’t sure which is the real location. The result is multiple mayorships of the same spot. Again, not cataclysmic, but it does make FourSquare a bit messy and less fun.

There’s little cache to winning the mayorship if you know anyone can do the same by just creating a duplicate location.

And if a company wants to offer coupons or specials to people who earn mayorships or even just check in, you darn tootin’ want to make sure you’re checking in at the bonafide location.

So, search before you add a venue. Sometimes, venues don’t just pop up. It could be that your GPS is off slightly and reading you in a different location. It could be you just need to hit “refresh.”

FourSquare will often warn you if you try to add a location that already exists, but if you misspell it or don’t add the address, often this warning won’t happen. Doing a quick search for the venue doesn’t seem like too much work, now does it?

3. Don’t lie. I may get some heat for this one because I know some people consider the fun of FourSquare is to check into Starbucks while standing in their office a quarter-mile from Starbucks. But nobody likes a cheater.

Yes, compared to robbing a bank or cheating on your income tax, lying on FourSquare pales. But remember what you learned in kindergarten: It doesn’t matter who wins or loses. It’s how you play the game.

So to check into a location you must actually be at the location. That means you didn’t just drive by or you didn’t just think about the place. And if you forget to check in and try to do it later to make up? Well, that’s probably OK in my book, but I’d worry if that becomes a habit. Really.

One exception to this rule: fake locations.

I have no problem with someone checking into “hell” or “heaven” while obviously still alive. I kind of like the metaphysical locations. But for brick-and-mortal places, please, actually walk in the door before you check in.

What do you think?

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I offered a list of Twitter etiquette tips for journalists — or anyone — a while back, and it got quite a buzz around the Twitterverse. Here’s round two: My updated list of what not to do on Twitter.

1. Don’t send an automated welcome direct message. I am not a fan of automated anything on Twitter because it’s a medium dependent on conversation, and automated conversations just aren’t fun. But the automated welcome direct message has really come to annoy me.

In the face-to-face world, we never walk up to someone we have just met and play them an oral automated message or hold a sign that says: “You’re going to love what I have to say.” So don’t do it virtually. It comes across as really spammy. And if it’s meant as a joke, it usually comes off as stupid, not funny. And if it includes a bid to “read your blog” with a link, it really is just junk mail. If it was in print form, I’d chuck it right in the recycling bin. If you want to welcome me to your community of followers, fine. It’s OK to send a real direct message that’s unique to me.

Talk to me — not at me.

2. Don’t protect your tweets. I’m not sure what the value of Twitter is if people can’t read your tweets. Really, why are you using a public medium for something so personal that it needs to be protected. I have a pretty iron-clad rule that I won’t follow people who protect their tweets. I break this rule only for people I know in the “real” world. I guess it’s OK if you use Twitter to whisper sweet nothings to a few people, but I’m not sure Twitter is the right place for that.

3. Don’t leave your bio blank.  Let’s face it: It takes about 30 second to fill out a Twitter bio for your profile page. Do it. It is one of the main ways people decide whether to follow you. I’m to the point where I pretty much won’t follow someone with a blank bio because I figure: If the person isn’t dedicated enough to fill out a bio, what could they have to say that I’d want to hear.

Now I realize some people get stopped because they want to make their bio clever or funny. They try a few things but feel the result is too bland, so they drop it. My advice: Don’t. I’d be more likely to follow someone who has a straightforward bio than someone with no bio at all. What I’m really looking for is whether the person tweets about topics that interest me: the media, social media, technology, mommyhood.

And while you’re at it, add a picture, please.

4. Don’t end a tweet with “please retweet.” It comes across, at least to me, as sort of icky. If your tweet is retweet-worthy, it will get retweeted, trust me. And if you want insurance, chat offline with your real, honest-to-God friends who happen to be on Twitter and ask them to retweet it for you. But don’t ask the whole Twitterverse.

To me it’s a bit like the rule on gifts for a wedding. If the bride and groom prefer money to blenders and toasters, that’s perfectly reasonable, especially if they’re planning a destination wedding in Hawaii, and they don’t want to haul lots of boxes back to the mainland. But it’s rude to put on the invitation: “Money preferred.” The way to handle that is through back channels. The mother of the bride tells her sisters, who tell their sisters, and soon everyone kind of knows to bring cash, not towels.

I realize retweeting and gifting a wedded couple aren’t exactly the same thing. But I think the commonality is this: In almost every situation, it’s rude to tell people what to do. “Please retweet” kind of steps over that line, at least for me.

5. Don’t tweet your own blog post more than three times a day. I regularly tweet my own blog posts, and I believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, as long as one also tweets other things. I’ve also found value in tweeting at different points of the day, to catch people in different times zones or who aren’t on Twitter all day. But enough is enough.

Again, the conversation metaphor is apt. Talk about yourself all the time when you meet new people at a party and you’re bound to be alone soon. I call it the 3-year-old syndrome. If you’ve had a 3-year-old (or ever been around one), you know what I mean. Three-year-olds are completely self-absorbed. I say that without malice. My kids were adorable at 3, and very young children are supposed to be self-absorbed. It’s how they survive. They need to get adults to do things for them. (Thank God, they are also incredibly cute.)

But the thing is most of us grow out of that, at least we should. For some reason, some people slip back into the terrible 3s on Twitter. (I know it’s usually called the Terrible 2s, but in my experience, 3-year-olds have it worse than 2-year-olds.) Resist the urge. Don’t regress. Grown-ups don’t do that.

Coming soon: My FourSquare etiquette rules.

What’s your Twitter pet peeve? What do you think of mine? Post a comment.

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 I’d say the Syracuse BizBuzz Social Media Conference this week was a great success.

The buzz was about 325 people showed up. The whole experience was pretty exciting — to be around so many people who want to get more connected and engaged online.

A few hiccups, of course: WiFi was really spotty in the main conference area, especially if you use Verizon, as I do. I wanted to live-tweet keynoter Dave Evans,  author of “Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day,” but to do that I had to borrow a friend’s Mac to do so. (The conference offered a login to get free Wi-Fi from the Oncenter, but it didn’t work that well for phones.)

That aside, I met some great people. Shared ideas. Learned some technical tips, especially during the Linked-In seminar. But for me the best takeaway is that we’re part of a something new and exciting. The tips on how to tweet or blog or connect on Linked-In matter less than the energy that spurs us to do it.

If you couldn’t make it to Biz Buzz, here is the power point from my speech on blogging for business. It was aimed to business professionals, but the tips are really relevants for anyone who wants to use their blog to engage. Enjoy.

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I am part of what I think is a pretty exciting event going on this week in my hometown of Syracuse.

The Syracuse Biz Buzz is the area’s first major social media conference.  The keynot speaker is Dave Evans, author of “Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day.”   A slew of presentations are planned, including a session on blogging by yours truly.

The event kicks off 5 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday (May 26) with a Tweetup at the Syracuse Technology Garden. The sessions run 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday (May 27) at the Oncenter.

My friend and Every Patient’s Advocate blogger Trisha Torrey will be speaking about using social media to build your brand. Syracuse University professor Jill Hurst-Wahl, who has guest blogged on Save the Media, will talk about developing and maintaining your reputation using social media. (Read the full schedule.)

I’ll be speaking from 11:15 to 11:45 on Thursday. (Get ticket information here.)

The event is geared to business professionals, although the tips and suggestions are relevant to anyone who wants to learn more about social media and blogging.

If you can’t make it — or you’re from out of town — be sure to check this blog on Thursday afternoon. I’ll be posting my power point from my presentation.

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I can hardly believe it has been more than a year since I started this blog. Back in those early days, I had hardly any readers. I was writing for myself, but bit by bit some of you started to read. I thank all of you for that. I appreciate your comments, your interest in what I have to say, and your ideas for the transformation of journalism. I hope to see you around the blogosphere in 2010.

Here are the 10 posts from Save the Media that you made popular in the past year:

1. 10 “journalism rules” you can break on your blog. This one raised the biggest buzz of anything I’ve written. Some liked it. Others didn’t. But it is safe to say this post got a lot of people thinking, which is always a good move in my book.

2. How Journalism Can Change. The credit for this one goes to my former Post-Standard colleague, Amber Smith. She blogs about health and fitness.

3. Top Twitter told for journalists. How to use Twitter as a journalistic tool, not just for telling people what you had for lunch.

4. A journalist’s guide to the ethics of social media. Is ethical social media use an oxymoron? I think not. I explain that ethics in social media are just like ethics anywhere else. Right is right.

5. Is blogging journalism? Yes and no. Blogging, I write is a tool, like newsprint or airwaves. Blogging can certainly be used for journalism, but not every blog is journalism.

6. The “hyperinterest” approach to news. What’s hyperinterest? It’s tailored to the niche. It’s specific to the audience.

7. Twitter etiquette, style rules for 2010. My take on the rules of Twitter.

8. How journalists can use Facebook.  Facebook is fun, but it’s also useful as a reporting, crowd-sourcing and community-building tool. Here’s how.

9. More on newspapers social media rules. This was about the ongoing hub-bub about The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal coming up with rules for how their staff use social media.

10. So what’s journalism? Folks on Twitter and yours truly tried to come up with a definition in today’s changing media climate.

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Twitter turns 4 in the new year, so I think it’s old enough to learn some manners. Here are my suggestions for Twitter etiquette and style as we head into 2010.  I’m sure I’ve missed some ideas, so feel free to add in the comments.

To tweet or to twitter: I think it has been well-established by now on Twitter that the verb is to tweet. I tweet today; I tweeted yesterday; I have tweeted many times. Twitter is not the verb. To twitter is something a bird does, by emitting chirping sounds. People don’t twitter. And certainly, please, dear journalists, let’s not switch back and forth between tweet and twitter as a verb. You wouldn’t do that with any other verb.

Twitterati: I think there is more ambiguity about the noun to describe people who use Twitter. Are they tweets or twits or twitterati? I, personally, prefer tweets over twits. But I like tweeps even more. Tweets feels a bit like saying, “Hey, these are my peeps.” But I’m not opposed to Twitterati, as long as it is used as a plural for both men and women on Twitter. Then, following the rule for Latin endings, one man on Twitter would be a Twitteratus; one woman, a Twitterata; a group of women, Twitteratae. Perhaps that gets too formal. Twitter user is also fine.

Twitterverse vs. Twittersphere: My preference for describing the whole world of Twitter is Twitterverse, mainly because I think Twitterverse sounds better than Twittersphere. (However, I much prefer blogosphere to blogoverse.) Yet, I think both are correct.

Thank you: I think a culture has developed on Twitter where it makes sense to thank people for retweeting your blog post or adding you to their Twitter lists. I think it’s fine, but not necessary, to thank people for following you. But, please, let’s outlaw this too-pervasive practice of thanking people through automatic direct messages, especially those that tout an e-book or blog. Why? Because that’s just spam in the clothing of faux friendship. I like to compare Twitter to a party. If you walked in and introduced yourself by saying, “Hi, read my book,” I probably wouldn’t talk to you much. You can tout your book — just wait to we have some semblance of a relationship.

Retweets: In the old days (like a year ago), people typed the word retweet before they retweeted (repeated) another person’s tweet. Today, that has been shortened to RT. But always be sure to credit the original person who tweeted. (Via @username works well.)  My rules on retweeting that others may or may not embrace is this: If you retweet, you can shorten the original tweet to fit the 140-character limit. But do not change the gist or meaning. That seems like misquoting, to me.

@Replies: Twitter is a conversational medium. People say things; other people respond. But when a one-on-one conversation goes beyond two or more tweets, it’s time to take the conversation outside — to direct messaging. A group discussion is fine to have on Twitter, I think. But when two people just talk exclusively through @replies, it feels a bit like listening to a stranger’s yelled cell phone conversation. Lower your voice, please. But if the topic is general and might be of interest to others — feel free to chat away without heading to the DMs.

1/2; 2/2: Twitter’s 140-character limit can seem restricting, but it doesn’t have to be. If you have more to say than can fit in 140 characters, use this approach. 1/2 at the start of  a tweet or @replies means: first part of two parts. The second part is 2/2. Now, I’d advice using this sparingly because often — but not always — the best route is to edit yourself. Also, the 1/2, 2/2 trick theoretically could be used for tweet, but in practice it is usually reserved for @replies and direct messages.

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Edited: 10:37 a.m. Dec. 29. Here’s what’s great about Twitter. I wrote this post, tweeted it, and within minutes got some smart comments froma fellow Twitter user, Frank D’Agostino, of Syracuse. I added his suggestions in italics, so it’s clear they came later than the rest of the post.

Edited: 11:25 a.m. Dec. 31. It’s official. Based on comments on this blog and suggestions on Twitter, I’m  updating my post to reflect my new belief that tweeps is the preferred term for people on Twitter.

Here’s a look at what my Tweet Cloud looks like. What’s a Tweet Cloud? It’s a blob of  topics you tweet about, with bigger type indicating you talk about the topic more than those with smaller type.

So what does this say about me? I don’t know, although it seems to indicate I’ve been tweeting my thanks a lot. That can’t be bad, I guess.

Anyway, I thought the Tweet Cloud was a fun way to waste a few minutes.  Get your own here.

By the way, I stole the idea of blogging my tweet cloud from Mark Hamilton, a journalism instructor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University who blogs at Notes from a Teacher. You can view his tweet cloud here.

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