As human beings we are social and we like to share to express ourselves – and we all love to get a bit of the limelight (Shameless?? – Moi??).. There has been no shortage of this in the Digital area. Newsjacking, as it became known last year, is becoming well accepted and getting bigger all the time.
A great definition of what Newsjacking means is provided by HubSpot:
“Newsjacking refers to the practice of capitalizing on the popularity of a news story to amplify your sales and marketing success. The term was popularized due to David Meerman Scott’s book Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage.”
The Inbound Marketer’s Complete Guide to Newsjacking by HubSpot Blog.
Famous examples of newsjackings:
Power outage that hit the Super Bowl
(3rd Feb 2013)
Oreo probably is one of the most famous newsjacking. Oreo took that opportunity and sent a tweet which was retweeted more than 15k times and favourited by more than 6,5k. By far this examples has been one of the best stories that has generated huge social media engagement.
Royal Baby: Prince George birth day
(22nd July 2013)
With over 2 million mentions about the royal baby, Starbucks was one of the brands which took the opportunity to get some social media coverage with almost 1,5k retweets.
The examples above are great and catchy but if you are a retailer or a service provider you show to the world what you do best and put some call to action in case the world wants to listen. There are many examples out there but have a look at the ones below:
William, Kate & George’s visit to New Zealand (8th April 2014)
With William, Kate & George’s visit to New Zealand, Alex and Alexa tweet a photo with a direct link to a landing page which feature the different garments the little prince was wearing. Great call to action (Thumbs up!!!)
Image from Agile newsjacking from Alex and Alexa and baby Prince George from Econsultancy
The night of the Oscars
(25th February 2013)
The night of the Oscars, AMEX sent a tweet an allegorical tweet with the famous Oscar statue. A more settled call to action here but ingenious one.
Image from 10 Oscar-Worthy Examples of Brands Newsjacking the Academy Awards by HubSpot blog
How to produce a decent Newsjack?
- Keep your ear to the ground & be observant for the next hot topic (don’t forget your company’s values and take into account what is important for the audience)
- Be spontaneous and stay ahead of the game from the rest; even journalist (if possible) -BUT don’t forget to check the story is accurate!
- Apply your style and make it personal in order to grab the attention of the public
- Promote it across a full range of social media channels
- Create a nice landing page which engages the user immediately