WTAE app notifications are one of our biggest sources of traffic.
When breaking news happens, WTAE app users are able to stay in the know through push alerts sent directly to their devices.
Alerts will generate thousands of views before a story hits our homepage, social media, or airwaves. Because of that, these push alerts are some of the most important promotional copy written in the newsroom.
Being able to write a captivating preview in 140 characters or less is a skill unique to news but integral to bringing our digital users the content they want. Other team members have praised my pushes for providing the most information in this limited space.
Push alerts are a place to play with attention-grabbing headlines, puns, emojis, visuals, and our audience’s interests, like learning about what makes Pittsburgh unique.
- WTAE was the outlet to break this all-in-all humorous news, one of our top-10 stories for May 2023. This push alert, which I wrote and sent, was the first way our audience learned about it.
- This story got over 62K page views, largely thanks to this notification. It was singled out by Hearst’s national digital team as an example of “strong push alert writing.”
- How to treat single-use plastic bags has been a hot-button issue in Allegheny County for years. When pushing out about an upcoming policy change around these bags, I wanted to emphasize staying informative while having some fun through the headline.
- It’s always rewarding pushing out a feel-good story like this. The couple here was getting engaged at the same terminal gate where they met, which was just too good a hook not to share out without a few emojis.
Allen Warren 