Categories: OLD Media Moves

How WSJ uses Pinterest

Elena Zak of 10,000 Words writes about how The Wall Street Journal uses Pinterest to improve the experience for its readers.

Zak writes, “Recently, the venerable news organization started experimenting with how to use Pinterest and created a Quotes board. Its description partially reads: ‘Editors are pinning memorable quotes appearing in The Wall Street Journal.’

“Each pin is an image of a quote from a recent WSJ story shown floating over a column of blurred out text, much like pull-quotes do in an actual story. A short description accompanies each pin, allowing the quote to stand alone. By clicking on an individual quote, readers/pinners are taken to the original story it was published in.

“‘There are so many memorable soundbites out there,’ said Brian Aguilar, a social media editor at the news organization who helped come up with the idea for the board. ‘This gives you the opportunity to really highlight them and pique people’s interest in a story.’

“This board can easily be replicated in newsrooms everywhere. I spoke (via email) with Aguilar to learn more about the board’s inspiration, how the images are created, and why the WSJ team isn’t worried about Pinterest and copyright issues.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.