Today, we’re continuing with our series of posts about inbound marketing by tackling the subject of newsjacking. The term itself was popularised by a number of key thought leaders in the marketing industry including David Meerman Scott, the author of the seminal release The New Rules of Marketing and PR who also penned a book about newsjacking.

But don’t worry if you’ve never heard the term before because it’s pretty easy to wrap your head around the general concepts. It basically relies on the idea of tapping into something that people are already talking about and then taking part in that conversation as a brand. A great example of this is Oreo’s now iconic “you can still dunk in the dark” tweet which went out during the 2013 Superbowl during an unexpected power cut.

The Oreo tweet demonstrates a key principle behind newsjacking, which is that it’s no longer good enough just to talk about something that you know is going to happen. If Oreo had tweeted a good luck message to both of the teams it would have been lost in the noise. What Oreo realised is that it’s not enough to pre-plan something but rather that you need to make it happen in real time.

Success with newsjacking

Oreo was successful with its attempt at newsjacking because it was ready for it. In fact, they had a dedicated team in a “war room” which was watching the game and looking out for an opportunity to jump into the conversation. They succeeded because their competitors were all taking the day off to enjoy the game while the team at Oreo hustled and put some extra work in.

And this shows the crux of a successful newsjacking approach. You can’t pre-prepare for it, you need to react to things in real-time. It’s also usually the companies who are first to post something who receive the lion’s share of the engagement, so you’ll need to streamline your content creation processes so that you’re not stuck waiting for some stakeholder to approve what you want to post.

A lot of people aren’t quite sure how to get started with newsjacking, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact, the same old principles of content creation and inbound marketing still apply, so you’ll want to make sure that whatever you’re sharing is adding some sort of value to your target audience, even if it’s just by making them laugh. When it comes to content marketing – and to all other types of marketing for that matter – relevance is key. It’s no different if you decide to try newsjacking.

Conclusion

Newsjacking can be a great way to boost your inbound marketing efforts if only because it helps you to cut through the noise. On top of that, it also helps to increase the relevance of your messaging and to humanise your brand whilst simultaneously showing that it’s up-to-date with current events. It’s hard to pull off, but when you manage it, it’s a gift that keeps on giving.

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