Social Media Newsjacking – The Next Level of Brand Marketing?

The term Newsjacking may sound as if you are hijacking the news, but the truth is that it can take your search engine optimization strategy far away from confinement in isolation. Newsjacking is a way to grab a reader’s attention by using a news story in order to fuel your own advertisement or story.

Here are a few tips to get you started on your own newsjacking campaign:

Be Quick

The whole idea behind newsjacking is to make people react to widely spread or breaking news. This is the point, where people will react to your news story on the variegated social media and this will also offer people an opportunity to interact with your brand. So, be respectful while posting newsjacking stories. Since social media can make or break the reputation of your brand, you should be careful to post non-controversial or positive news stories.

Keep it Respectful and Relevant

News stories such as those pertaining to the birth of an heir to the royal throne were screaming for the attention of baby product brands. But if you did not link it to this, then did you at least wonder how your brand can relate to this news story? If you think of your own news angle and if there is a way you could get involved respectfully, then you could be the next winner.

Plan Your Newsjacking Moment

photo credit Zarko Drincic via Flickr

When it is possible to do so, create a plan! Identify which news stories are relevant to your brand, and come up with some ideas after doing some brainstorming. Events like the World Cup, elections, and large celebrations can give your brand the time needed to think about how you can get involved and how you can add some value to the internet based discussions. Large events can create the opportunity to make the best use of the hash tag feature of the variegated social media and to engage with your audience. The more you plan, the more likely you are to start interesting conversations.

Measure the success of the newsjacking

What is the goal you have in mind for a newsjacking feature? Is your aim to make more people buy your products or simply make them sign up to your newsletters? Also, make sure you work out how you would be measuring the success of your newsjacking campaign and find out which will give you the opportunity to learn before you could launch your next newsjacking campaign.

Don’t push it

Do not try to push social media newsjacking by trying to form an unnatural connection of the news story to your brand. Your newsjacking campaign can backfire on you, if you try to push it too far. While creating a newsjacking feature, make sure you raise a flag, but do it respectfully and without making the wrong impression on people. There have been many cases, where people have tried to show their patriotism or their pride by trying to relate it to their brand and had their campaigns backfired, despite their having a good intention.