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Newsjacking: The Do’s, Don’ts, and Definitely Don’ts

With so much going on in the news right now, from Pride Month to the World Cup, there are many opportunities for PR professionals to jump on the bandwagon and promote their brand, aka the newsjack. I’m not going to go into depth explaining the term since it has been around since 2012 when David Meerman Scott wrote a book on the topic, but as a refresher or quick insight to those who do not know: Newsjacking can be simply defined as “injecting your ideas into breaking news.”

While most PR pros know about the idea and attempt it frequently, many of their efforts fail or receive little or negative feedback. Here you will find tips on how to appropriately and effectively take advantage of popular news, as well as ways to avoid poor and tasteless newsjacking.

Do:

Be timely: When trying to jump on a story, you should be sure to do so before everyone else does. This way when people are trying to research and learn more about a story, your content will be first to reach them. No one is trying to get more information on a story that has already passed. News moves quickly, and if you post too late, your key publics will have moved on to something else by then. An example of good timing is this tweet by Aldi, a European supermarket that jumped on the impending World Cup match up between Denmark and Australian.

Plan if possible: While jumping on a breaking news story can be effective, you are pressured to come up with an effective message in a short amount of time. If you look ahead at what big news stories will be coming up, such as the Olympics or the birth of a royal baby, you have time to create and edit the perfect message to capture the attention of your audience. An example is this Coca-Cola tweet, which looked ahead to the birth of the royal baby and created a graphic that was witty and creative to go along with the occasion.

Jump on positive messages: While much of the news we see today is negative, that doesn’t mean you can’t be successful in newsjacking an uplifting story. You want your brand to be seen in a positive light, so it is a good idea to attach it to news that is also positive. It might be tempting to jump on negative stories since they can be more popular, but this can easily be done poorly and can leave your brand open to scrutiny. See below for examples of what can happen if you newsjack a negative story in poor taste.

Don’t:

Promote at any cost: Make sure you are only newsjacking stories or events that your key publics will care about. If you are doing PR for PR’s sake, you’re wasting your time and your publics’ time. Your message will come off as pushy and will leave a bad taste in your audience’s mouth, rather than elevating your brand. An example of this was @UrbanOutfitters tweet during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The tweet gained so much bad press that it had to be deleted, but it read “this storm blows but free shipping doesn’t!”. Not only did they belittle a storm that killed over 100 people, but they tried to turn it around into a promotion for free shipping. This story was irrelevant to their brand and they should not have tried to newsjack it.

Copy: This may seem self-explanatory, but do not copy other brands attempts at newsjacking. You may see a great tweet and think you can spin it to fit your brand and no one will notice, and you might get away with it, but there is a greater chance someone will spot the similarity and you will be scrutinized. If someone is looking at content under a hashtag and finds your post, they will probably find the post you copied. Remember that every post or tweet has a timestamp and you will be viewed as lazy or uncreative in the eyes of your publics.

Definitely Don’t:

Offend anyone: The worst thing you can do is newsjack a sensitive news story to boost your brand’s image. No tweet is worth the risk of offending people and creating a scandal for your brand where you will have to go into crisis mode. If you take anything away from my tips, make sure you get your posts proofread by multiple people. Hopefully, if a couple people look over your content before you post it, you will catch offensive messages before they go live, and you will avoid having to post an apology later. Another example that has since been deleted, is @kennethcole that tweeted “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor they heard our new spring collection is now available online”, during the deadly political mayhem that was unraveling in Egypt in 2011. This tweet lead to an apology the company had to issue in the face of the scandal that ensued.