Newsjacking: How To Get a Free £1M Publicity Campaign For Your Business
Posted by Jason Rudland on Mon, Jan 16, 2012 @ 01:15 AM
Plain old public relations is still alive and kicking in this digital age. In fact, the four cornerstones of modern marketing are content marketing, search marketing, social media, and PR. However, the digital age has created a new way for anyone to get publicity worth £millions, for free - Newsjacking.
I first discovered the concept of newsjacking from David Meerman Scott's book Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage, which shows step by step how to get your brand in the traditional news media, and written about by influential bloggers.
What is Newsjacking?
To understand Newsjacking, first you need to know a little about how journalists work in the modern 24/7/365 rolling news world. There is immense pressure when a story breaks; journalists need to find facts they can use in their story, and they need them fast. Inevitably they turn to Google to research the subject.
If the journalists find your blog articles talking about the subject of the news story, they will use it - probably cut and pasted directly from your article. And, crucially they will give you a credit. Newsjacking is when you publish information journalists can use in real-time.
How does Newsjacking work?
To effectively Newsjack a story, you have to be fast. The best way to explain it is to use the example, David used in his book. How the London Fire Brigade newsjacked the story about a fire on Richard Branson's Island, where Kate Winslet ran back in to a burning building to save Richard Branson's mother after it was set alight by lightening.
When the story broke, the LFB were on it like lightening (please forgive the pun!) They immediately wrote a blog and issued a press release offering Kate Winslet free fire safety training. She's broken the rules by re-entering a burning house!
At the same time the LFB were issuing their press release, there were hundreds or thousands of journalists Googling to research background to the story - of course, they found the LFB offer, and this became the 2nd paragraph of many of their stories.
By being quick-witted and proactive the LFB secure publicity for it's fire safety campaign which normally would cost millions. The techniques of Newsjacking can do the same for your business. If you would like to read more I recommend you buy & read David's book.
Do you have any tip or tricks to get publicity for free? Leave a comment below.
