3 of the Best Newsjacking Blog Posts (Plus 1 way to create your own)
Me as a baby: what is with that weird puppet sheet man on Tiktok?
What is a newsjacking blog post?
Ask David Meerman Scott.
In his book “Newsjacking” Scott identifies the strategy and coined the phrase “newsjacking”- the act of piggy backing a current news story and using it for marketing. While brands had been using this marketing technique for decades (think WW2 advertising directed at women, the Keep Calm and Carry On campaign and Uncle Sam wants YOU posters), Scott finally coined a term for it and delved deep into the phenomenon and why and how it worked.
Newsjacking works for brand awareness content, namely, blogs, which are specifically about what you do. The news that you are weaving in is the relatable and attention grabbing aspect of your post. You still need to discuss your brand and give value to your audience.
The most successful examples of newsjacking link together two unlikely situations and make the union seem justified or natural.
The deodorant brand linx and Prince Harry getting up to hijinx in his youth is one example. Oreo cookies saying you can dunk them in the dark during a massive long term blackout is another.
What newsjacking does, primarily, is attract. You’re posting when there are the most eyes looking for the topic. As humans, we are all about pattern recognition and we move towards things that look like other things that we already know. For example, in a recent survey, responders reported trusting the people who make YouTube videos because they trusted the YouTube platform. (Google/Talk Shoppe August 2022 study). A carefully crafted title, a unique angle or a story with a twist, is sometimes all the audience needs to make that initial click of recognition, after which they read, and hopefully share, your newsjacking content.
There are two keys to getting newsjacking right-
You must cultivate a practice of staying current. Marketing is about developing a deep understanding of audiences, culture and social changes, motivations and trends. To be successful, you must be engaging with as much of the content that is out there daily as you can. By staying current, there is a high probability you will learn how to identify what will trend, before it does trend. Being able to read the signs of what will become important to your audience is like developing the ability to spin twine into gold. This skill is priceless, not just for newsjacking, but for marketing in general.
Don’t overdo it. Not every topical controversy or rising trend needs to become a blog post on your site.
The genius of marketer’s who get newsjacking right is knowing when to leave newsjacking alone.
Oreo cookies, arguably the best newsjackers of the past 8 years, have hit the headlines 3 or 4 times with a clever and timely post. But that’s it. Trying to piggyback, even as often as monthly, is too often. Imagine newsjacking as being the child who accidentally makes the adults laugh once. It’s hilarious, everyone talks about it, we love it. Then the child tells the same joke over and over and over again, desperately wanting the same response. Not great. Remember that when you want to write another sassy article and relate it to your brand.
3 of the best newsjacking blog posts
Now that we know what it is, let’s see what great looks like.
7 management lessons from the walking dead
This post by Brett Arends from 2014 is still cited today as a brilliant example of newsjacking in an article. Audiences were going wild for TV program “The Walking Dead” and Arends successfully manages to wrap the storylines of the show around a lesson in management. He walks the line of humorous cleverly, being funny but not forcing it, and genuinely critiques the program’s somewhat problematic story choices in a way that feels conversational and genuine. It really is a master class in how newsjacking is done.
Marketing and PR advice to Occupy Wallstreet protestors
Written by David Meerman Scott in 2011 in which Scott gives the Occupy Wallstreet movement free marketing advice. From defining their logo to optimizing their website, this light hearted yet actionable how-to, clearly establishes the importance of marketing strategy for anything you take public. Scott’s advice is genuine, which makes the whole piece more enjoyable for the widest possible audience. And because it is genuine, it is also educational, increasing the likelihood of sharing.
What Breaking Bad can teach us about investing
Written by Josh Okane in 2013, and published just as the hugely popular “Breaking Bad” aired its final episode, Okane manages to turn Walter White into a teaching tool for investors. By humanizing White’s core personality flaw, pride, and likening his behaviour to that of a reckless investor, Okane creates a simple yet meaningful lesson in the importance of not relying on luck if you want success as an investor. He unpacks the journey of Walter White- from a man with cancer to a blue crystal sociopath- warning would be investors to consider the risks and not to use one lucky payout as an excuse to live like a high roller.
The 1 way to create a newsjacking post for your website
Identify your audience
You should by now have a buyer persona mapped out. A part of that persona is the ideal audiences complimentary interests. Google provides audience profiles which show what other topics your ideal audience looks for the most. This widens the types of news stories that can be jacked. If the ideal audience is most interested in investment and trading, and their complimentary interests are gaming and UFC, a newsjacked story could be about cryptocurrency, Grand Theft Auto or Rhonda Rousey.
HOWEVER, the most viral newsjacking posts occur when the writer stitches together two seemingly unrelated topics which force the audience to consider their similarities and be entertained by the novelty of discussing them together.
Consider your industry and the most stereotypical ideas people have about it. With investment for example, people might think Wolf of Wallstreet or Crypto bros, maybe they think the industry is corrupt. A viral news story of a tiktok dance or a baby getting rescued (I don’t know, humour me) could work together to explain risk reward or the value of staying realistic when you invest.
What is your unique angle and core takeaway idea
Creating a true newsjacked post requires creativity, lateral thinking and a good sense of comedic timing. Before you start, ask yourself- what is happening in the wider discourse that seems to be gaining traction, and what is happening in my industry that I can dissect under the public lens? If you look again, each successful piece of newsjacked copy demonstrates an industry’s core product- marketing a brand, the essentials of leadership or the personality traits of a successful investor- in a widely consumable package.
How can you demonstrate a key pillar of your industry or product within the copy, and will the juxtaposition of a trend encourage genuine engagement and curiosity from an unaware consumer group?
Titles and hooks
My nemesis.
One of the most simple and effective titles to a newsjacking article is:
What does [news topic] teach us about [specific industry issue]?
Simplicity and pattern recognition generally works best to pique interest, more so if the news topic and industry niche are particularly unaligned. Think air bags and the supplement industry or bitcoin billionaires and the training methods used by MacDonalds. The abrupt jarring of the two ideas IS the attraction to the piece.
For a hook, discuss the news topic first. Tell the story of how you first heard about the controversy. What was your initial reaction?
Follow with a statement designed to elicit curiosity- questions like “could the crypto billionaires explain why the way we train our school age workers gets the unlikely results that it does?”
I already want to read that.
Newsjacking for social media
Understand first that most trending stories are created on social media. Your best possible chance of going viral is on social media. Where brands get it wrong is by trying to coerce social media users into jumping on their manufactured trends, or running potential posts through rounds of think-tanks and approvals and missing the boat entirely. Don’t be most brands.
There are two methods for using newsjacking on social media:
Find a recent story (1-3 days old) which is specifically about your industry but also addresses a universal problem. Like this example:
Here, writer Robin Madell is showcasing this copywriter and the development of a copywriting career from skint freelancer to comfortable millionaire (I wish) and addressing the age old problem of how do I get rich like that guy. This is one approach.
Or
Experiment with comedy. AUTHORS NOTE- this approach has a high high risk factor and can destroy reputations. For example:
This is good:
This is bad:
You have been warned.
When approaching social media, take the chance to diversify your content with lighthearted or relaxed commentary with the purpose of humanizing the profile. Providing commentary from the sidelines is an entirely acceptable position to take. Especially for highly controversial content, like politics or discourse around intrinsic community characteristics, “observing bystander” is the safest bet.
Social media is an unknown beast when it comes to virality. The anatomy of why a post went viral is obvious once the post has gone viral. Until then, why an innocent off the cuff reference to your new manicure becoming dinner table fodder across the globe in an hour, remains a mystery. The less you think about it, the better.
In conclusion-
Newsjacking posts are high risk, high reward. The potential for massive reach is huge. Timing, tone, shrewd strategy and careful framing can collide just right and your business blog might find itself indexed and shared into the stratosphere.
Good Luck.
This is great!