Why Newsjacking is an Essential Part of Your Digital PR Strategy

If you want to understand one of the most useful strategies for brands to elevate their profile, then look no further than Newsjacking. Put simply, newsjacking is the lining of your brand to an item on the news agenda. It can even be used to position spokespeople within the brand as experts within the press. These are just a few reasons why you should be incorporating newsjacking into your Digital PR marketing strategy. 

There are two types of newsjacking, with varying degrees of success expected from either. The first being proactive newsjacking, where you can easily plan for these opportunities. Events such as existing calendar dates, launches, or anniversaries are ones you can plan you comment on that will bring attention to your brand. The benefit of this approach is that you can easily plan and pitch your statement or comment ahead of time to the media publications that may be running the story.

The second of which is reactive newsjacking, which takes more finesse and precision. Reactive opportunities are time-bound opportunities, when a story breaks you need to produce your statement in a timely manner otherwise you won’t be quoted. This offers the chance for big coverage payoffs on very current and hot topics, such as government, industry-changing news, or a notable name or business. 

Why You Should Incorporate Newsjacking Into Your Digital PR Strategy

Newsjacking is a powerful tool because it lets you utilise an audience that is hotly invested in the topic you are commenting on and turn their attention towards you and your brand. It aligns your business with timely ideas and helps turn the spotlight onto your products or services. And by newsjacking the story, it shows you are a current brand, one that is aware of current trends and affairs, therefore giving you a position of authority.

Some more benefits of newsjacking are also:

• Add to brand credibility and reputation.
• Organic links and citations.
• Drives highly targeted and relevant traffic to your website that could turn into leads and sales.
• Lead your market in thought leadership.

MarketingLand’s Chris Kerns and author of Trendology provides some starts that support the concept of newsjacking using Twitter:

• Brands that tweeted about unexpected news events saw an average 1,200 percent increase in retweets from their Twitter following.
• Brands that tweeted about major and expected events still saw an average of a 400 percent increase in retweets.

What this goes to show is the influence newsjacking has on potential reach on social media. While it also confirms the reward is possibly great for reactive as opposed to proactive newsjacking. Both are still beneficial for your brand.

If you want to elevate your brand’s social media presence and reach the people you want through organic social media, get in touch with us here. 

Some Things to Be Wary of When Newsjacking

The first bit of advice to ensure you nail your newsjacking approach is: be quick and be accurate. While in the world of journalism the approach of “if you’re not first, you’re last” may benefit them as it is the nature to be first and hope you’re accurate as a second thought. When it comes to digital PR you want to establish your brand as a point of authority, and you can’t do this if you’re fast and wrong. You need to be measured with your approach to ensure the byproduct of your reactive newsjacking is a positive one. 

The second piece of advice is in regards to sensitivity on topics you’re commenting on. While the opportunity for a positive result is great, the possibility of backlash is also rife. This ties into the previous point, when commenting on something controversial or serious, ensure your approach is measured. 

Many Upsides, Few Down

Newsjacking should be an essential part of your digital PR strategy, with the opportunity for large-scale exposure and benefits including establishing your brand as a point of authority making it a lucrative, no-brainer decision. The possible downsides are easily negotiable, but never impossible to not encounter. 

If you’re looking for assistance with your business’s digital marketing strategy and would like an expert’s guidance, feel free to get in touch with us. We’d love to help your business reach new peaks.