Explore Our Brand New Database And See What Journalists Create So You Can Better Connect 🫶
Updated July 14th 2023
You scan the paper and search the website and there it is…your brand or client’s name. And then again. And again and again. BOOM! Newsjacking success!
You’ve made the nationals, your industry media, and an influencer has mentioned your client with an on-point quote about a trending story.
There’s no feeling like it for a passionate PR or marketer.
Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? Write an email, send it out, and maybe make some phone calls – afraid not.
There’s a fine art to newsjacking and I should know: I started my career as a broadcast journalist working in newsrooms across the UK and answering those pesky PR calls and emails.
Then I made the switch to PR, becoming the person on the other end of the phone selling in my client’s stories.
I’ll get to what I’ve learnt from both sides of the newsjacking process and my top dos and don’ts in a sec. But first let’s cover off a few of the basics…
Newsjacking is immediately reacting to a news story with expertise to gain attention, achieve PR coverage and capitalize on a developing trend.
Let’s unpack that definition.
Definition | Meaning |
---|---|
“immediately reacting” | For newsjacking to work, you have to be fast. Super fast. |
“with expertise” | You can contact journalists or other influencers with your spokesperson’s viewpoint in the form of written content such as a quote, tweet or article. You can offer them the opportunity to interview your expert by describing why they are an authority on the topic. You can share owned data or a report. |
“attention” | For your data or content to be used it must either: say something obvious but in a unique or authoritative way that fits into the article or report the journalist is writing; or add something new to the story so the journalist has a new angle to develop. |
As well as the usual advantages of PR and content marketing – building your brand, credibility, SEO and thought leadership authority – newsjacking shows consumers that a brand has its finger on the pulse of what matters.
It’s also a potential quick win, especially in comparison to an in-depth marketing campaign.
Let's dive into that:
Unlike other forms of PR, like creative campaigns, Newsjacking is a relatively low cost activity. In fact, you can hijack news stories with a single comment – which costs nothing.
The breaking news cycle is defined by speed and pace. Commentary, data, photos, videos – anything you pitch to ride the wave of viral news needs to be created quickly, making it a relatively low-lift activity.
There are cyclical patterns in trending news cycles. When you realize topics that tend to repeat themselves, you can create a bank of relevant content (eg. expert quotes, opinions, photography etc.) and repurpose it whenever that news story comes back around again. Sporting events, award ceremonies, seasonal content. These recurring, reactive themes help you get more mileage out of your PR.
The fact that newsjacking is a low lift, low cost, recyclable, quick-turnaround activity means it's easier to scale your newsjacking, and earn more bang for your PR buck.
Journalists look for commentary from a range of people – not just experts – to differentiate their news stories. Anyone in yours or your clients' company can provide a unique insight and perspective. Publicly available data (ie. census data) can also be accessed by anyone. This can form the basis of original, newsjacking research.
You don’t need to spend time researching pitch ideas when you’re newsjacking, because you already know people are interested. You just need to pique their interest further.
Of all content, journalist’s need different angles for news stories the most. A survey from Cision revealed that “In an effort to keep up with the never-ending news cycle, nearly three in ten journalists (29%) file 10 or more stories per week.” and nearly 43% of journalists cover five beats or more.
The whole point of newsjacking is taking a popular topic, and shining a different light on it. It’s all about transposing news across different ideas, themes, and verticals – meaning it’s a flexible strategy that can be applied by any brand, and for any client. The fact that the content is already trending, means it's also far more likely to be syndicated by a range of publishers.
TL;DR: Rise at Seven used BuzzSumo to find out that a brand of butter was trending due to its high price. They worked with their grocery client to run a free giveaway of said butter, and won coverage in numerous top news publications.
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Rise at Seven use BuzzSumo's Trending Tool every day, to find stories to newsjack.
One day they discovered that Lurpak butter was trending, after its price was raised to £9 ($11.50) in some stores...
Because Rise at Seven were the first to know about it, they were able to newsjack the story.
They advised their grocery client, Getir, to give away a free pack of Lurpak, to help out with the cost of living.
They pitched the story to national media, and landed 27 press links, and a reach of 281m people.
Let’s look at each of the four stages of newsjacking in turn:
To react fast with the right spokesperson and expertise, preparation is everything.
Newsjacking might not sound like the most strategic PR activity, but it can in fact help you land a key message in a swathe of media – if careful thinking has been done in advance.
If you’re working in / with a mid-to-large organization, identify a spokesperson for each topic based on a leaders’ knowledge, experience and personality.
“When I look for people to add to a discussion or debate – especially for broadcast material – I always aim to find an expert or someone who has a strong connection to the issue. They should be able to provide strong and clear points to clarify matters.” Parisa Qurban, BBC
At this point you will also be thinking about what you’re looking to get out of newsjacking – is it increased brand awareness? News syndication? SEO uplift? Building your authority as a thought leader? What PR metrics will you be looking at?
Your objective will probably have you thinking about how you want to be referenced.
That being said, all publishers are different in how they deal with links and references. BuzzSumo's journalist research proves that, of the journalists that mentioned brands in their content, only 23% included a link.
But that don't let that put you off requesting one.
After all, it's a two way relationship, and you're adding value to a journalist's content.
If you’re intent on a link to your a specific page other than the homepage, research beforehand to understand the publishers’ linking style.
If your desired publication won’t drop an "anchor rich" link to a specific page for you, a homepage link will still be great coverage for your client or your brand.
When it comes to SEO, according to Rand Fishkin, Google is already making intelligent connections between brands and websites, even without links.
Newsjacking and digital PR is therefore going to become even more important!
Constantly read, listen to, and watch news outlets where you want to achieve coverage.
One way of doing this is by setting up feeds to come straight to your inbox on a regular basis.
BuzzSumo has a great tool for this called BuzzSumo Trending. You can quickly configure a custom feed around your target publishers, and see which of their content is gaining momentum on social.
A quick way of finding out this information is by making sure you have a Journalist Alert set up around the journalist’s name. That way you’ll be notified every time they publish an article across the web.
Make sure that when a news story breaks, you will have everything you could possibly need at your fingertips:
A great tip for discovering this information is to use BuzzSumo’s Journalist Profiles, which give you the journalist’s:
This journalist information can help enhance the value of your PR, by helping you create relevant content to share with the right journalists, and better personalize your emails when you come to do outreach.
Make sure everyone knows their role, both in your team and within the client organisation, from the marketing manager to the spokesperson to their PAs.
Run a practice before your first newsjack, when you have new spokespeople, and test the technology you will be using, again and again.
Hijackable news stories don’t land in your lap. Monitoring is a never-ending endeavor.
Always be on alert:
Assess the situation and then dive into perfectly planned action.
HERE IT IS! You’ve spotted a breaking news story that you or your client can speak on with authority across key publications, to meet strategic objectives. It’s time to put into action everything you’ve prepared.
Get your team together. Work out the angle. Divide and conquer. Who will…?
“[Include] a subject line that spells out what the news is and a pitch written in honest, plain English.” Anthony Ha, TechCrunch
📬 Subject line stating the news story and what you are offering.
🗣️ Quote written which either says something generic that fits with what journalists are likely to say, or takes the story on.
📖 Concise, highly relevant biography of the spokesperson.
🎤 Offer of an interview with the spokesperson and two or three bullet points of what they could talk about.
📧 An accurate way to get in touch.
Get to grips with the best ways to find and contact journalists by reading our 2022 report.
We analyzed the content of 600K journalists, and surveyed them to understand what it takes to create the ultimate pitch. Find out:
And more...
Find out how to pitch once and for all.
Don’t stop! Once you’ve got the messaging sorted and sent your initial pitch emails, it’s no time to pause. Get on the phone to the newsdesks to see which journalist is owning the story.
Talk to or resend the email to them. Tweet the quote from your spokesperson’s social media accounts. You could experiment with @mentioning journalists you know are covering the story and are aware of you or your client.
Newsrooms across the country look very different since 2020. Journalists are increasingly working from home. They’re carrying out interviews over video rather than face-to-face. And they’re getting even more PR and content pitches. Does that change how to pitch? The fundamentals of how to newsjack remain the same but now more than ever, only the best pitches sent to the right journalists at the right time will cut through
Once you’ve done your outreach, it's time to track all relevant mentions around your brand, and the keywords relevant to the story. To do this, create an Alert in BuzzSumo with your brand name and those chosen keywords.
This Alert will ensure you never miss a web mention, and give you insights into the additional coverage generated. Reporting on the performance of your PR efforts is made easier with a Coverage Report. This report can be exported from the alerts section and gives additional insights into:
This will help you report on the impact of your newsjacking efforts!
Make the most of coverage. Reuse and repurpose content that hasn’t been picked up.
Congratulations, you’ve done some first class newsjacking! But – sorry – your work doesn’t stop there. There’s still plenty to do to make the most of the opportunity.
If your newsjack was successful and you achieve PR marketing coverage in your key publications:
If your newsjack didn’t result in coverage:
Consider how you could improve your chances of success next time, for instance looking at who did get quoted and what marked them out.
✅ Make journalists’ lives easier. If you’ve secured an opportunity, keep them up to date on what is going on.
✅ Practice. Especially if it’s been a while, or you have a new spokesperson, or you are working on behalf of a client and have never newsjacked together before.
✅ Tailor your pitch to journalists and influencers. Spend the time getting to know journalists so you can work out the best approach. Many prefer an email pitch to telephone or social, especially as a first contact.
“I like access rather than being served or told what the story is.” Emma Barnett, BBC
❌ Ask if a journalist has received your email. Journalists do tend to read their emails and will get back to you if what you have sent is relevant.
If you call and get through (which is rare), say which story you are getting in touch about and explain why your spokesperson is an ideal interviewee and / or your data is relevant and unique.
Cut to the chase – journalists are always busy, working to deadline and likely regretting having answered the phone to a PR.
❌ Request interview questions or copy approval. You’re not going to get it on a fast turnaround newsjack.
❌ Offer a spokesperson who is not available. Nothing annoys journalists more.
It may sound fast and fun, and during those breaking news moments it really is, but successful newsjacking requires the right thinking and tools to be in place in advance.
Only then can newsjacking achieve its truly brand-altering potential.
Now you’re a newsjacking pro, take a look at our Trendjacking Guide to discover how to use what’s trending to further increase your brand’s visibility.
If you want to get better at riding the wave of trend stories, BuzzSumo is here for you – try our 30 day free trial.
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