Growth Hacking The Newsjacking Way
By Srish Agrawal
Without a flicker of doubt, we can term the last few years as ‘The Period of Disruptive Transformation’ . Startups across the globe, with their unique business models and marketing ideas, have been able to ink unprecedented growth and success. They’ve gone from nowhere to enormous reach in a short span, now with billions of users worldwide. This was never imagined a few decades back.
Uber, Airbnb and others have shown the world how to carve out a niche and make a mark through creative, innovative and technical marketing strategies. They understand and believe in the latent potential of their products and services and work and execute well to transform this potential into reality.
The absolute focus on driving growth by new businesses has brought about a radical transformation, giving rise to a number of methods, tools and best practices that are aligned with consumer’s lifestyle, behavioral psychology and real-time needs mapping. This simply didn’t exist in traditional marketing.
The defining features of these growth hacking techniques have been their low-cost and surprising efficacy, allowing even the smallest startup to dream big and do big.
Newsjacking is one such viral marketing technique that I firmly believe can help startups multiply reach and amplify growth.
Riding your campaign on a wave of a news story that’s all set up to spread like wildfire is the Art of Newsjacking. News stories tend to capture the attention of larger audiences more effectively than advertising, which makes Newsjacking a smart move that gets your marketing message across almost instantly and inexpensively.
Newsjacking is now an established expertise, which appears to be simple on the surface, however it requires considerable thought and expertise. In this short chapter, we introduce you to Newsjacking, show how it helps hack your business growth, and what you need to do for it to work flawlessly.
Newsjacking is Backed by Trust and the Ability to Go Viral
Trust plays a strong role in the consumption of any kind of message and communication. Advertising and marketing messages tend to be received with much lower trust-levels than a breaking news story. Further, people who are naturally less inclined to trust people tend to disregard mainstream news stories, and prefer blogs, social media and alternative opinions.
In addition, there has been a rapid shift from relying on traditional print news to consuming news from online sources. As online news publishers tend to update developing stories continuously and many of these stories have the potential to go viral, marketers have a wealth of sources to engage in Newsjacking.
Sales and marketing professionals can piggyback on potentially viral news stories and design their marketing messages and campaigns around them. The primary objective is to create increased visibility and positive opinion about the brand they are committed to feature.
“Newsjacking helps improve SEO ranking, promotes thought leadership, increases conversion rates and enhances content marketing and social engagement.” #TheGrowthHackingBook #GrowthHackingMovement #GrowthHackingDay
Use Newsjacking to Break Sales Records
There are a number of benefits associated with newsjacking:
SEO: Search engines promote content that appear first in news results. If you cover a news topic before others do, you could rank higher in the search results. Improved SEO results in improved sales figures.
Thought leadership: Helps you to position yourself as a thought leader in your area of expertise, if you provide detailed insights and observations on a developing news story related to your brand.
Boost conversion rates: Newsjacking can boost conversion rates dramatically by directing traffic to your website and by enhancing your credibility and marketing success.
Improve content marketing: Newsjacking provides raw material for your content marketing funnel, helping you ride on viral news stories to remain relevant.
Improve social media engagement: Provides a great opportunity to engage your audience and make an impact on their lives by discussing what matters to them.
Four Stages of a News Story
While most savvy businesses have already begun to engage in some form of Newsjacking via social media, it’s important to understand the normal news cycle before trying Newsjacking.
Stage 1: An event takes place and the news is broken.
Stage 2: There’s a general scramble for information as journalists seek more information to report.
Stage 3: The news story peaks and begins to plateau.
Stage 4: The story becomes old and no longer appeals to the audience.
How to Successfully Implement Newsjacking
It’s difficult for an overstretched content marketing team to remain updated about the latest news headlines, but with a few simple tricks and a little effort, even a small team can Newsjack successfully.
  1. RSS Alerts: Set up RSS alerts about topics that interest your readers and subscribe to topics that are of particular importance to your industry. Do not limit yourself to industry news, Newsjacking requires you to use news headlines that impact your target audience so use their behavioral and psychographic indices and subscribe to customized alerts.
  2. Social Media: Monitor social media to understand what your followers are talking about. Social media monitoring tools such as Hubspot can be particularly helpful to critically evaluate topics of interest for your followers. Build a campaign based on which topic is being discussed by your audience on social media.
  3. Keyword Search Volume: Use keyword search volume, then build content based on a topic that you have decided to Newsjack. Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner are effective tools to help you focus on a topic that interests your audience. You can also research long tail keywords and implement them in your SEO efforts to positively influence the SERPs when you have comparatively shorter deadlines.
  4. Know The Topic: Read extensively about the topic you have chosen to write about, especially if you plan to write a blog post. Verify your sources and cross-check with secondary sources of the news story. If you plan to use a developing news story as part of a social media strategy, make sure to be factually correct.
  5. Be Quick and Accurate: While it is important to write quickly, before the news story becomes common knowledge, it is also important to write accurately. Don’t be too choosy about your photographs and formatting, as these actions can delay publishing.
  6. Use The Tools: Use the right tools to get your message across. Don’t restrict yourself to textual social media and blog content. Integrate videos and infographics into your posts, as they have a higher chance of going viral than written content.
  7. Introduce Your Angle: The reason why businesses engage in Newsjacking is to communicate their existence, relevance and thought leadership. Introduce your own angle to the story, and make sure to differentiate your content from others who have already written on the topic.
  8. Use Public Relations: Do not stop at social media and your own blogs to market Newsjacking items. Instead, contact reputed Journalists and Public Relations Agencies, especially if you have information about something that they still don’t. This can prove to be an opportunity for you to be cited by credible sources, enhancing your image.
Newsjack with Caution - Five Points to Remember
It’s important to exercise caution while Newsjacking. Graham C.L. Davey, Ph.D., the author of, ‘Why We Worry’, wrote on Psychology Today that news bulletins can have a negative impact on people if the content isn’t pleasant. This is why marketers should be careful to avoid news stories that may evoke negative emotions such as fear, disgust, contempt or even skepticism. For instance, an earthquake is certainly not the situation to capitalize on. The negative emotions that consumers experience from such a tragic event, may get projected onto your brand.
To make sure your Newsjacking efforts are successful, it is important to consider the following five points carefully:
  1. Timing: Make sure you launch a social media and blogging campaign just when the news breaks and Journalists are still scrambling to find additional information. It’s at this point that people’s excitement level intensifies. Once journalists begin writing detailed opinion pieces, you’re unlikely to benefit from Newsjacking as the news agencies normally do a better job at reporting than marketing agencies ever will.
    Example: Oreo’s real-time Newsjacking effort during a 35-minute blackout earned it accolades and sales. It was witty, potentially viral and non-offensive.
  2. Relevance: Choose the news topic you are going to piggyback on very carefully. The news story should be relevant to your business or at least to your target audience. Use demographic and psychographic indices to discover which news trends will interest your readers the most. Choose only the most relevant topics to kick start your Newsjacking campaign.
    Example: “This storm blows (but free shipping doesn’t)! Today only!”, screamed Urban Outfitters, leading to criticisms for being irrelevant. The company experienced brand cancellations after their Newsjacking attempt failed.
  3. Accuracy: With fake news becoming a global problem, people are increasingly wary about what they read online. Carefully verify everything you write and crosscheck with at least two reputed news agencies before engaging in Newsjacking. Trying to push a marketing message via news that’s not credible can hurt your brand more than it can ever help.
    Example: Krispy Kreme’s ‘Tastiest Eclipse in History’ , campaign was successful because it provided accurate information about an eclipse while also promoting Krispy Kreme Donuts, suggesting they should be eaten when dark.
  4. Empathy: As discussed previously, consider your readers’ and target audiences’ emotions and feelings. Avoid negative news headlines and don’t use stories that may evoke skepticism among readers. Choose neutral and positive news stories in order to make an impact on your readers’ emotions. For instance, while warning about impending summer heat can be construed as empathic, the same cannot be said of an actual heat wave that has resulted in a large number of casualties.
    Example: In the middle of the Syrian conflict, fashion designer Kenneth Cole tweeted ‘boots on the ground’ , in a cringe-worthy attempt to Newsjack that failed.
  5. Not overdoing: The key to Newsjacking is to not overdo it. The more you rely on breaking news to support your growth hacking campaign, the less likely your original content is going to be impactful. Focus on building long-lasting and evergreen content that isn’t newsy. This will help your SEO and marketing and will solidify your status as a thought leader. Newsjacking can be a small part of your content marketing strategy, not the main action plan.
    Example: In India, dairy company Amul, successfully engages in Newsjacking despite overdoing it, and is widely popular for its timely and relevant socio-political cartoons in print media. This doesn’t work for most brands.
Before Newsjacking a Developing Story:
Only use newsjacking to show your readers that you’re aware of what impacts them and that you’re in touch with stories that affect them on a regular basis, without neglecting your own content marketing strategy.
Key Points to Remember
How to Newsjack
Stay updated and focus on new trends and technologies to stay relevant with your marketing efforts. AI-Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, AR-Augmented Reality and VR-Virtual Reality and other technologies are redefining the growth hack game at lightning pace. Gear up to weave them into your marketing and carve your way to success and growth.
Happy Growth Hacking!