Newsjacking | Taking Advantage of Trends

Trends move fast. And often, as it seems, by the time you decide to jump on a trend, it’s already come and gone. But recently, we learned about newsjacking and that idea really got my attention. How can one jump on a trend in time? How can they use trending topics to their advantage?

Well, first of all, let’s define newsjacking. According to David Meerman Scott (the man who coined the phrase), “Newsjacking is the art and science of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story so you and your ideas get noticed.” In order to do this effectively, however, you have to catch at the right time: on its way up. This is what makes it so difficult. You have to really pay attention to new stories and develop your idea to align with it as quickly as possible.

But how does one “newsjack?” According to David Meerman Scott, you want to a.) keep an eye on Google Trends and Google Alerts, b.) keep an eye on journalists who specialize in your industry or area of business, c.) make twitter hashtags your new best friend, and d.) well, if you can help it, be as lucky as possible. 

Newsjacking can be hard but done right (that is, catching the story before it peaks), the results are dramatic. Newsjacking can help you catch the eye of a large audience and that can then lead to more internet traffic and even conversions. Not only that, newsjacking can get you attention by other authoritative news publications which helps your brand name and your reputation. And those authoritative sites linking to your page can do wonders for your offsite SEO. 

Newsjacking is difficult, there’s no other way to say it. And a lot of times, you just have to hope for an insane amount of luck. But these are some ways that you can use your creative mind to draw attention to your site simply through “piggy-backing” off a trend. 

https://www.impactplus.com/blog/the-art-of-newsjacking-and-the-seo-benefits