What is newsjacking? How to leverage trending news to benefit your brand
Newsjacking is a technique in which a company uses a current and significant news story to promote their own messages or brand. By creating articles, blogs or social media posts that relate their own insights to topical trends or events, companies can use the popularity of current news to make their stories more visible.
Why is newsjacking such a handy technique?
Importantly, newsjacking is an easy and effective way to get media coverage. If a certain subject is popular, you know journalists and consumers will want to read more and any connected information you have could be useful as a new hook.
As well as this, linking your work to current trends can create a bigger buzz around your company and your messages. By providing insights for certain stories you can add to key market conversations and get recognised as a strong player in your niche.
Examples: How to newsjack in the HR market
There are some simple but very successful ways to newsjack in the HR market so that you can create your own stories out of popular discussions. To help illustrate some of the effective ways the technique can be used, we’ve added some examples of newsjacking we’ve completed for our client, Renovo.
Expand on a specific news event
This first technique uses the pull and intrigue of a specific newsworthy event to generate interest in your own ideas. With many news events people want more information, more insights and different opinions to help them gain a better understanding of the subject. From here, it’s your job to give your own advice and expertise to present yourself or your brand as an authority on the subject.
This article works well because it takes a widespread news event that was popular in national papers and adds a HR-specific spin to generate further interest amongst target audiences. Whilst the original news story was about rising claims for universal credit after job losses, Renovo’s expertise on redundancy and career support also gave advice to those who recently became unemployed.
This type of newsjacking can be simply replicated for many news events as long as they are relevant to your brand and market - all you need to do is impart your own wisdom and educate audiences further on a current topic.
Add your spin on some research
News doesn’t always come in the form of an event - sometimes surveys, studies and whitepapers make excellent articles. Often, undertaking this research can be time-consuming or expensive, however, it’s possible to add your spin on someone else’s research to get your ideas across.
When giving new insights on a piece of research, it’s vital that this research is still fresh - old stats and facts simply won’t make the cut with journalists or readers.
As well as this, the insights you add must be different. Restating someone else’s ideas surrounding the research won’t be of interest to the media and certainly won’t generate interesting conversations around your brand. In essence, though you are using someone else’s data as a leveraging point, you need your own insights that are newsworthy in themselves.
This article uses research from one of our other clients, Inpulse, but adds a new angle to the story. Whilst Inpulse’s study educates on the mental health of workers under coronavirus, Renovo’s approach to the piece is all about educating on ways to reduce these job-related worries. This newsjacking works well because Renovo uses Inpulse's story as a platform to kickstart their own conversation surrounding work-related health.
Whilst in this example Renovo uses a study that was already conducted and aimed at HR markets, it’s possible to use broader (non-HR specific) studies and add industry specific angles to them. National surveys, for example, can receive a lot of attention in the media and often hold so much data that they can be made into HR-orientated news pieces.
PR in HR’s top tips for newsjacking
1. Speed is essential
When newsjacking, speed is of the essence. You need to respond to news before your competitors get a chance to react or before the news becomes outdated and irrelevant.
This requires a quick response from everyone involved - clients must supply information sufficiently and your PR team must rapidly create a great piece of content. Not only this, but the approval of the content must be quick too - your article needs to reach the media ASAP and any delays will hinder your chance of gaining that all important coverage.
2. Fingers on the pulse
In order to get your ideas out quickly, you have to respond to news as soon as it breaks. This requires constant attention from your PR team on news and events relevant to your company. Fingers must be on the pulse of any topical HR trend that breaks.
3. Bring something new to the table
It’s really important that the views or angles you bring to the table are fresh. Journalists won’t cover a story that’s already been done so you always need to add something new to the conversation. This can be easily achieved by providing your own advice, tips, extra market insights or a contrasting opinion on a topic.
4. Reference others
When you use someone else’s research or insights, it’s vital that you reference their work. Not only do you not want to refrain from plagiarism but, in general, it’s just polite! If you like their work enough to use it yourself, you need to give them the credit they deserve.
5. Respond appropriately
Certain news events can be sensitive issues and you don’t want to appear inconsiderate by newsjacking these purely for the sake of promoting your own brand. Essentially, don’t use sensitive topics just to capitalise on them.
Instead, you should always aim to add something helpful to the conversation. With the HR media, educating is key - not just pushing new launches or events. Always respond to news with the aim of informing your audiences.
For further support boosting your PR and communications strategy, get in touch. We’ve been helping HR and workplace related brands for over 25 years and we’d love to share our expertise with you too.