While doing online market research for one of our clients last week, we saw how many companies use “newsjacking” as part of their marketing plans.
What is newsjacking?
The term was created by David Meerman Scott, a specialist in marketing strategies and the author of several books. The name comes from news (news) and hijack (hijack), which would come to be a “newsjacking”. We could say that newsjacking is a marketing technique that takes advantage of breaking news and incorporates it into your content to make your brand known.
For example, every time a hashtag is trending on social networks or there is an increase in searches for articles about a big story, our content has the opportunity to be in front of people that otherwise would not get to see our message.
Thanks to new technologies, such as social networks, we can learn about the news and trends of the moment to inform ourselves and create creative, quality, and interesting content to share with our users.
What Are the Benefits of Newsjacking?
Attracting Users’ Attention
If we know what interests our target audience, we can create content especially for them. We will be able to give visibility to our brand and even get subscribers.
Gain Credibility
Users will see that we are “up to date”. We are informed of current trends and news.
Icrease Reach
We can see that the vast majority of events that are created today have a hashtag that allows them to promote the content, capture reactions, and even maximize their reach.
Add Variety To Our Content Strategy
No matter how creative we are, our minds often go blank, but newsjacking helps us get inspired and create new ideas.
Conversing With Users
Practicing active listening is an opportunity to converse and engage with users.
Entertain readers
Not all content has to be serious. We can create content with touches of humor. If the creativity is good and original, the user will surely share it.
Generating Sales Opportunities
The practice of newsjacking can help us gain “leads” from which some of them become customers.
Help Small And Medium-sized Companies.
It can give more visibility to our brand and compete with larger ones.
But there is an important disadvantage: the content we create has no useful life. We will have to keep creating content because what was news yesterday is no longer news today.
What Does It Take to Succeed with Newsjacking?
BE QUICK
There is no point in publishing news or an event a few days after it has happened. Immediacy is key.
BE CREATIVE
We must be creative and put our personal stamp on it. We may come across similar news or content, but differentiation will be what makes us stand out.
BE HUMAN
Not everything goes. Many brands fail on this point. We must proceed with caution, because otherwise we run the risk of having users turn against us.
Steps to Carry Out Newsjacking Correctly
Choose the topics.
To detect breaking news or trends, we can use different monitoring tools. We should also figure out what the most important events, news sites (both local and national), trending topics, etc. are.
Preparing an editorial calendar
We cannot plan everything, but if we know what events will take place in the near future (e.g., Los Goya, The Oscar Gala, a sporting event, etc.), we can create alerts. For example, a few days before the Oscars Gala, we can poll users to find out which is their favorite to win the statuette. And it should not stop here. For example, you could comment live on the Gala and then make an infographic with the winners and the most controversial, funny, shared, etc. tweets.
Think if it is of interest to our audience.
Not all content is valid; we must select it very carefully. This exercise can save us a lot of unpleasantness in the eyes of the audience. We have to keep in mind that we don’t want to hurt our online reputation, since it’s not easy to get back on your feet after a crisis.
Create the content.
We must generate content creatively and quickly. The key lies in originality.
Share fast.
If we want to have a great impact and achieve a great reach, we must be the first and the fastest. The best time to share is at the beginning, so users can find our content first.
