Salon.com’s store and what it says about its audience

Salon.com has many departments and sections for its Web site, but the one I found particularly interesting is its newly created store. It does not sell ancillary products but rather compiles a collection of peculiar yet interesting and unique items. (Or, as one commenter put it: “What a weird collection of random crap.”) By clicking on any of the items, it brings up a short description and link to go buy the product elsewhere. The items Salon have chosen say a lot about its audience. By browsing the store, it’s easy to tell Salon’s readers have disposable income, have a college education, are interested in the finer (and unnecessary) things in life and, more often than not, own a dog.

Some of the items include: a German oyster knife, a Gingerbread dog toy, ice stones for malt beverages, coffee table books, hemp dog leashes with fleece-lining, travel books, digital cameras, traveling pouches for dog food and whiskey tumblers.

Perhaps it shows not only are Salon readers Apple-consumed, NPR-listening liberals, they’re liquor-drinking, traveling dog lovers, too.

Salon.com and social media

Like many media outlets today, Salon.com is on many different social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. Readers also follow Salon through RSS feeds, on their mobile phones and through their Yahoo and iGoogle accounts. It also offers a daily newsletter to registered users. On Twitter, there are updates about the Web site’s breaking news, blog posts, interviews, movie reviews, etc. It currently has more than 3,700 followers. Most of the tweets have a small, intriguing teaser followed by a link to the article. Facebook and Twitter are two of the most effective social media tools to reach readers, and it’s good to see Salon jumping on the bandwagon. Facebook and Twitter are also audience-appropriate tools to use, as opposed to a platform like MySpace.

Advertising

The advertisements on Salon.com reflect the audience that visits the Web site regularly. The ads are for such places and products as Chase Bank, Starbucks coffee, a pet grooming service and a smart phone. Salon is not inundated with pop-up ads that are irksome on so many Internet sites. The ads also do not appear to clutter the Web page but are designed to fit in such a way that will draw attention but not annoy the reader. The ads reflect an audience who has disposable income to spend money on things like name-brand coffee and pet grooming. The same ads would probably not appear on a news Web site like USAToday.com, which has a much broader audience whose average household income is likely lower.

It’s interesting to note that the same Starbucks advertisement appears on NYTimes.com, whose audience demographics more closely resemble that of Salon’s.

Competitors

Salon.com’s main competitors include Slate, The Daily Beast and The Huffington Post, all of which are online-only media outlets. Slate covers news, entertainment and politics with an irreverent, snarky tone that is reminiscent of Salon’s approach to reporting the day and week’s events. Editorial cartoons have become a staple at Slate. There is also The Daily Beast, a tabloid-esque online news source that is flashy and bold in its aesthetics and attitude. The Huffington Post features stories about politics, as well as opinion pieces and the latest goings on in business, technology and the arts. The Huffington Post has a liberal slant to its coverage much like Salon. All three competitors have a strong online presence and following. They attract roughly the same audience – that is, affluent, college-educated readers who have a desire to stay in the know about political and cultural happenings.

Types of stories, part two

In this blog post, I want to focus on one particular story I read on Salon.com that has stayed with me for the past few months. In my feature writing class last semester, my professor had us read a story called, “The monster inside my son.” It actually leads in with a mention of Trudy Steuernagel, a political science professor here at Kent State University who died after her autistic son beat her to death. The story ran in March. The author, Ann Bauer, delves into her own personal experience with autism. Her grown son is autistic, and she writes about his attack on a young woman and her feelings through the entire ordeal. It’s a very compelling story and also somewhat sad.

Of all the stories Salon.com offers, this kind is my favorite to read. The stories about politics – what bill was passed when, whose party we’re blaming now, which politician is cheating on his wife – are the stories most people come to the Web site to read, but stories like Bauer’s are the ones they’ll remember.

Types of stories, part one

Salon.com covers a wide range of topics from entertainment to technology and business to politics. It also publishes opinion pieces that tend to reflect a very liberal point of view, a fact the Web site doesn’t try to hide. Conservatives aren’t included in Salon.com’s targeted audience. This is evident by the most popular stories this week: “Fox News isn’t even pretending anymore” and “I get my investment advice from Glenn Beck,” an article in which the author discusses the right-wing TV personality with an underlying feeling of disdain.

The writing style is conversational in tone. It’s not rigid like some hard-news outlets. Even the headlines have attitude: “Why do Yahoo e-mail users have sucky credit?” and “How do you solve a problem like Ikea?” The latter is about a man in search of a cheap mattress who finds himself in Ikea for the first time. This first-person essay is playful and fun to read and encapsulates the kind of content that sets Salon.com apart from other news Web sites.

Salon.com’s audience

The audience for Salon.com is most likely college-educated, affluent and interested in politics, popular culture and breaking news. The articles are a reflection of such an audience, which includes movie and book reviews, opinion pieces and comics, as well as stories about the latest developments in Congress and foreign policy. The viewpoint at Salon.com takes a liberal approach. Because the online magazine was founded by former journalists at The San Francisco Examiner (and is headquartered in San Francisco), it makes sense the content is more aligned with the left than right.

According to a media kit provided by the Web site, Salon.com’s audience has at least a bachelor’s degree, owns or leases a car, uses a Mac computer, listens to NPR, reads general and political news online and visits blogs. As a casual reader of Salon.com myself, I cannot argue with the description: I am a college student who owns a car (sort of) and a MacBook, which I use to download NPR podcasts and read the news and blogs, like this one.

A look at Salon.com

Salon.com, an online-only magazine, offers breaking news, opinion, politics, entertainment, sports and culture. The Web site is updated frequently and encourages its readers to get involved in its online community that includes blogs, message boards and letters to the editor. The audience is college-educated, affluent, liberal, interested in current events and politically aware. The magazine sets itself apart from hard-news outlets, such as The New York Times and CNN, by its lively and original reporting, as well as in-depth analysis. Salon.com helps its readers make sense of the day’s events. The tone of the articles is also less formal, more conversational and sometimes – depending on the author and topic – snarky. It has often been referred to as a “smart tabloid.”

A group of journalists at The San Francisco Examiner founded Salon.com in 1995. They believed the Internet was full of opportunities to deliver the news, none of which various media companies were taking advantage of. Today, Salon.com works well as an online-only magazine because, in addition to multimedia (i.e. videos, podcasts), the Web site is kept alive by its interaction with readers and updates every weekday. While there are many Web sites people can turn to get their news, Salon.com has set itself apart by the quality of its stories and the attitude with which its writers report them.