Newsjacking

One good and simple way to get content onto your website is through newsjacking. Newsjacking is the process of injecting your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, to generate media coverage for yourself or your business. People are hungry for different opinions on breaking news or for opinions similar to their own. Below are tips on how to newsjack.

Find news to jack

There is so much news to cover every day 24/7. Monitor news that contains keywords, phrases & trending word clouds around the topic of your content. Track experts, journalists, and media outlets are saying about the event. X (aka Twitter) hashtags are an easy way to track trending topics as well as get the opinions of those who have just come across the news story.

Formulate a strategy in real-time

The speed at which you act on the news is essential. Keep in mind that news can become old sooner than you think. You should capitalize on the newness of each news story but you need to focus on the type of material and the pace with which you publish your outlook. News channels and other news media outlets can cover a multitude of these different stories quickly because they have thousands of employees working for them. If it’s just you or you and a small team, you have to pick and choose news stories based on the type of content you want to be known for. For example, if you are into entertainment news, narrow your feed down to news in Hollywood and other entertainment media. If it’s a small team, limit your pace of publishing, maybe one or a few tweets a day, one big news recap at the end of every week, etc. You also need to ask yourself “Why should the media care?” So put your all into newsjacking and make your content the best it possibly can be so the media knows why they should.

Get your take into the market ASAP

There are many ways to quickly get your take on a news story onto the news market.

Blog post – Post your take on the news story in your blog. Maybe put a link in your post regarding where you got your information. This may help boost your posts.

Tweet – Tweets are an easy way to get your take out to millions and more are likely to see it when you use associated hashtags that relate to your news story.

Talking to a journalist – Directly talking to a journalist who is knowledgeable about the news story is a great way to get credible information, though you have to ensure their credibility by viewing their history in the field and going to other sources. Directly interviewing them for your next article, video, or audio show can also draw more buzz to your content.

Other methods include sending real-time media alerts, talking about the news story in a speech, and holding a live or virtual news conference.

For example, on Feb 3, 2013, the Baltimore Ravens played against the San Francisco 49ers at the New Orleans Superdome during Super Bowl 47. At some point during the game, the lights in the stadium went out for a while. Later, Oreo came out with an advertisement that referenced the incident. Covering a news story related to the topic of your site can help give your site more views and press and show your users your knowledge of the topic.