Marketing has a lot of buzzwords. If there’s one you should remember, it is newsjacking. Newsjacking is process that can help you with inbound marketing techniques, such as blogging. So, what exactly is newsjacking? Let’s dig a little deeper.
What Is Newsjacking?
In a nutshell: When a news story goes viral and you want to capitalize on its popularity by using it in marketing, PR or sales techniques. You may take a breaking news story and add your own thoughts or spin it differently to fit your target audience. Once you do so you are newsjacking, using a news piece to get your own media coverage (or online virality).
Even the news industry and media outlets use newsjacking. Have you ever noticed a story on your local news channel that is actually a national story that they found a way to report with a local spin? Maybe they interviewed local residents with ties to the national story or have had something similar happen. Either way, this is a simplified version of newsjacking.
However, newsjacking isn’t just for journalists. Anyone can do it, so get started!
Why Should I Use Newsjacking?
Newsjacking provides you an opportunity to create an original piece of content surrounding a popular topic. For example: maybe Google introduced a new algorithm. Everyone is talking about it, but what is missing? You will look for what’s not being covered and created your own content – whether it’s an infographic or blog piece.
Newsjacking is free. It is an effort that you can complete without investing anything other your time and creativity. To boot, newsjacking can help your marketing efforts in a few other ways:
- SEO benefits
- Increases brand reputation and rapport
- Original posts drive highly targeted (and qualified) traffic
- With a correct CTA in your new content, you could easily turn these visitors into quality leads.
How Do I Use It?
David Meerman Scott wrote a book about newsjacking called Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage. This book is a great resource for additional newsjacking information. He has created the following image to depict the timeline of newsjacking and when you should create your original piece of content:
In this image, you can see that you should try to newsjack before journalists are able to produce full, polished pieces. Having a piece of breaking news content published before the masses will help your marketing and PR campaigns soar.
Here are a 4 ways to stay up-to-date on the most recent breaking news stories and to remain accurate when newsjacking:
- Breaking News Alerts
- Tool examples: Google Alerts, Social Listening Tools
- Search Keywords
- What terms are being searched in your industry?
- Are they relevant and timely?
- Accuracy Is Key
- Publishing a story first does require fast writing, but be sure to not abandon the quality of your writing. Always double check grammar and accuracy. One bad post could hurt your brand’s credibility.
- Stand Out
- Add your brand voice!
- Consider other types of content to publish.
I’ll leave you with one more of Scott’s fantastic images regarding how to newsjack:
Have you used newsjacking in your marketing and PR efforts? Where have you found success?
