A PR Pro's Guide to Newsjacking

By EPR Editorial TeamOctober 2, 20143 min read

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People see articles everywhere with titles such as five marketing lessons from the Asian games or four things eBay’s billion dollar payday can do to inspire B2B marketers. Uniquely crafted takes on a current event attract a reader to visit a company’s website to read more. These articles and others like them are part of newsjacking, an inbound marketing strategy.

A Unique Concept

Newsjacking refers to the creation of high quality content that includes a writer’s or company’s thoughts with a trending news story. This is done in order to peak reader interest and drive more clicks. David Meerman Scott coined the term in his book. It has immediately found a place in the lexicon of modern marketers. This is because, if it is done correctly, it really works.

The Reason

Although newsjacking can give a company or writer a fun break from everyday content creation, it can also give them a number of other significant benefits. It can improve their brand recognition and reputation, increase their SEO and drive qualified online traffic to their website at a very low cost.

Important Tips

Make the Connections

People can be waiting for a while if they choose to linger around for breaking news that matches up perfectly with their industry. When it comes to potential newsjacking topics, they should have an open mind. They should think about how they can tie a story back to what their business does if it peaks their interest even though it is not directly related to their industry. Many times, the most interesting and appealing articles are the most unexpected creations. With this in mind, people should get creative all the time.

Immerse Yourself in the News

In order to be successful in newsjacking, people should always be familiar with recent news events. However, it would be close to impossible to manually follow every important news source. If they are going to be an effective newsjacker, people should take advantage of services such as tweetdeck, Google alerts and Google reader to keep in touch with relevant industry keywords and blogs.

Deliver on Your Promises

Although creativity is an important component of newsjacking, people should set boundaries. They should only create articles that they can truly connect back to the news story that they are commenting on. Although audiences are often intrigued and eager to read an article that makes unique connections, their interest can turn into disappointment if the written piece is too much of a stretch.

Promote Vigorously

It would be a shame if a carefully created article went unseen after putting lots of work into it. In order to get the word out, people should tweet it out to their followers, post it on their blog and share it with their Facebook audience. It would also be great for them to comment on the news event that has inspired their written piece with links back to their site. They should closely monitor twitter for discussions of their topic and respond with links to their content. In short, they will generate more traffic to their site if they spread the word about their article.

Move Fast

Unlike everyday content, the newsjacking process needs a quicker turnaround. It does not take too long for a current event to become old news. A writer can lose potential readers if their content takes too much time to produce. Always bear in mind that the objective here is to make relevant content for a particular current event. They should aim to create content on the same day once they have found a story and made strong connections back to their business.

Written by

EPR Editorial Team

EPR Editorial Team - Author at Everything Public Relations

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