What is Newsjacking?
Newsjacking. You will have seen it when a celebrity make a humorous mistake or during major sporting events. Or when the British weather gets either really hot, or really cold. You will have seen great examples on TV, social media and as advertising. Big brands earn extra credit with the best timed timed lines and images. The phenomon is called: Newsjacking.
If you’re already familiar with Newsjacking, just check out our next article. If you’d like to find out more, let us tell you.
Newsjacking refers to the practice of capitalizing on popularity of a news story. The aim is to amplify your sales and marketing success and get your brand mentioned by others. It originated from David Meerman Scott’s book – ‘Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage’. Essentially, breaking news hits the headlines multiple times a day. Breaking news always is a wave of extreme coverage and high-volume impressions, which is absolute gold for brands. Jumping in at the right moment can therefore generate tons of free media coverage.
The news hype doesn’t stick around for long. Some stories are only popular for a few hours, others are for a few days. If you’re lucky, some may remain a few weeks. The earlier you jump on the bandwagon, the higher your chances of success.
This is why bloggers always posts stories when Freedom launches a new update or Google changes its algorithm. People are interested, so they’re more likely to click in to read more, download an offer, or take part in the conversation. If something new is happening in your industry, you should be writing about it to get in on the action!
The key to Newsjacking: Timing
To get maximum exposure, you have to be quick. People are generally not interested in yesterday’s news. It can be daunting to write a new blog post, or get your creative juices flowing each time there is an opportunity. But no matter how small, these opportunities can translate into big coverage for your brand, both online and offline.
Our own example
This was a few years back, but nevertheless very applicable to compliment this story. Our designer Tom ‘jacked the news’ with Radiator, getting massive exposure on Facebook, Twitter and 9Gag. In other words, his post went viral.
By Photoshopping the Gladiator film poster and simply putting this up online, he gained massive exposure to the community of designers and was very much noticed by big brands. This very simple gag resulted in 4 new clients, let alone the thousands (if not millions) of people who saw his work. Easy, but extremely effective.
