Have you ever taken advantage of breaking news to reap financial rewards for your business? If yes, then most certainly you’ve been practicing newsjacking. It’s an ingenious way to advertise your business’ services and products and to increase engagement with your audience.
If you’re into digital marketing, most certainly you’ve heard or read a thing or two about newsjacking. But what is it exactly?
Table of Contents
What is newsjacking?
Newsjacking is the practice of taking advantage of popular and trending news stories for the benefit of your business. The term was conceptualized by public relations and marketing expert David Meerman Scott in his book Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage.
For example, when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie split, the world wept, and it was all over the news. The news of it created an opportunity for newsjacking. Norwegian Air Shuttle, an airline company, took a cocky approach to advertise flight tickets to Brad Pitt’s home city. This move highlighted their flights to Los Angeles and mirrored conversations about a high-profile media story.
With trending news coming out every second across the globe, a news story’s popularity can die out pretty quickly. However, if you’ve been successful in injecting your marketing message before the lights go out, it can significantly have a positive impact on your business.
Why should you newsjack?
In newsjacking, you should be accurate and fast at what you do. Although trends and hypes die fast, this fast-moving market is also a digital marketer’s gold mine for opportunities to get in front of the competition. Newsjacking, when done correctly, can significantly help drive your company’s reputation, leads, sales, authority, and SEO (search engine optimization).
What are the benefits of newsjacking?
Here are four key benefits of newsjacking:
If your audience on social media is somewhat on the passive side, newsjacking can be a great strategy to keep your viewers engaged. One of the key benefits of this strategy is that it can easily start conversations. As news affects our daily lives, it can make your audience more likely to talk about it, too.
Acquires a larger audience –
By producing your usual content day by day, you also produce audience organically and create awareness for your business and services. However, this method can be challenging, as the number of people searching for what is trending is always going to be larger than people searching for your content. In that matter, creating newsjacked content about what is trending can surely give you a larger audience.
Gets in front of the competition –
As your brand reputation and name grows, media outlets may also notice you. This can give you the opportunity to get interviewed and be asked for backlinks to your blog. Being interviewed by mainstream media can put you in front of a larger audience and can considerably increase your brand’s authority.
Allows more involvement in the community –
Being in a business, selling products and services are needed to survive. If you’re not selling anything, then you’re not going to make money. However, you can’t just sell something. If your customers get the impression that you only sell to make money, it can have a negative impact on your brand that can lead to sales loss. By practicing newsjacking, you’re, in a way, telling your audience that you’re not just after the sales but that you’re socially aware, too, and involved in the community.
How do you do newsjacking?
Newsjacking is actually straightforward and simple. However, you should always remember to act fast. Here are some steps to do your very own newsjacking:
Be alert –
Although it’s hard to always get on top of trends, there are now automation tools widely available online that allow you to keep an eye on social media channels and can even give you alerts on the latest news. These include Buffer, SocialOomph, and Sendible.
Be optimized –
Now that you have a trending story to newsjack, you’ll have to create content for it. But before you start, make sure to optimize your content with keyword phrases that have higher search volumes to have that extra organic boost.
Be fast –
As stated earlier, speed is essential in newsjacking. The more time you delay, the less impactful your content will be.
Be unique –
How can you make a more compelling content out of this already popular story? It’s simple. Write a better angle of the story, provide better examples, and be more thorough.
Closing thoughts
Newsjacking is an effective and efficient way to promote your business and get social media attention. When utilized properly, it can boost your brand awareness, SEO, and even sales. However, you also have to keep in mind that this strategy can also backfire. Always make sure that you’re writing content without negative implications.
I am Very Enthusiastic about Writing Tech, Smart Phones, Products Reviews, Offers, and deals. I have been writing on tricks5.com since 2015.
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