A guide to help you understand how to create successful newsjacks.

1. How-To Guide
Successful Newsjacking
Executive Summary
Have you ever watched or heard breaking news and within hours it seems that every
business you’ve heard of is Tweeting or posting about it in some clever way? This activity,
piggy-backing on a news event to self-promote, is known as a newsjack, and it often is a
very effective way to generate a buzz. The way it works is quite simple: when a news story
breaks, many people turn to the Internet to learn more. As people search online for more
information about the story of interest, if you have “jacked” the story, your newsjack is now
part of the search results. When done effectively, a newsjack not only promotes your
business locally and worldwide, but also garners admiration for a successful and clever
piece of promotion.
This How-To Guide will explain what newsjacking is, how newsjacking can help promote
your business, give examples of how newsjacking has been done in the past and provide a
detailed action plan on how to create clever, memorable and appropriate newsjacks that
promote your business.
What is “newsjacking”?
Newsjacking is the act of exploiting breaking news by injecting your ideas or commentary,
usually in a clever way into a related social media post. It is ideally done in real-time and
when done well, gets attention that increases the awareness of your brand. With
newsjacking, marketers are making a specific effort to benefit from the popularity of a
specific news item while it is in circulation and getting a lot of attention. This type of news
is less important than your ability to exploit it, as long as the news generates sufficient
interest within your target market. When you execute a newsjack, your target market has a
good chance of seeing it when they take to the Internet to find out more.
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2. How-To Guide
The benefits
There are many awareness benefits to newsjacking. When executed well, a good jack can
even win you awards. It’s also important to recognize that when done poorly, it can do
short and even long-term damage to your brand or reputation. This reality isn’t meant to
discourage, but as a reminder to give full consideration to the potential risks and rewards.
Newsjacking is a fun and creative form of promotion. Because newsjacks tend toward the
spontaneous, clever, humorous or even irreverent, they tend to get noticed when more
traditional promotional communications are ignored. They represent a welcome creative
challenge for the marketing team to react quickly and produce something of value.
The idea of newsjacking is not new; however, its popularity has increased over the past
decade thanks to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. In fact, sometimes a
company’s best response to a rising issue is a newsjack. Showing that your business
appreciates the lighter side will help your customers see you as relatable, instead of part of
the “machine”.
Clever newsjacking builds your reputation and recognition, increases your SEO and traffic
to your website. A successful newsjack requires you to quickly circulate something that is
clever and relatable.
How’s it’s been done
Here are some great examples of successful newsjacks that resulted from the 34 minute
power outage that occurred during Super Bowl XLVII:
1. Oreo cookies
During the Super Bowl blackout, Oreo sent out a Tweet saying “Power out? No
problem” and attached a picture of an Oreo in half a spotlight and the caption “You
© 2013 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

3. How-To Guide
can still dunk in the dark”. This was re-tweeted more than 15,000 times by the next
day, and represents a brilliant newsjack by Oreo. Because the game was paused for
such a long period of time, people watching the game naturally took to the Internet
to see what was happening. Oreo saw this as an opportunity to create a clever,
memorable brand impression.
2. Walgreens
Right after the blackout, Walgreens began tweeting “We sell candles” and “We also
sell flashlights”. These Tweets included the hashtag #SuperBowl, which was a brilliant
idea on the part of Walgreens. Every person who took to Twitter during the 34
minute blackout and searched the #SuperBowl (looking for answers to the reasons
for the darkness) would have seen this Tweet. Walgreens wasn’t selling anything
new, nor were they promoting anything directly related to the Super Bowl, but in
those brief 34 minutes, they were connected to the world’s most popular sporting
event. By taking advantage of the blackout episode, Walgreens received some great
visibility.
3. Audi
Audi produced another Super Bowl favourite. When the lights went out at the
Superdome, the German carmaker seized the opportunity to make a jab at
competitor Mercedes-Benz, owner of the naming rights to the Superdome, and
whose logo was frequently pictured during the broadcast. Audi’s Tweet “Sending
some LED’s to the @MBUSA Superdome right now…” not only was a successful
newsjack, but Audi also tagged Mercedes-Benz USA in the Tweet, ensuring more
followers would see it. In reality, the lights in the Superdome were not provided by
Mercedes-Benz, but Audi saw this as a unique opportunity to make light fun of their
competitor and it worked brilliantly, as it was re-tweeted over 10,000 times in the
first 6 hours.
© 2013 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

4. How-To Guide
These examples show how following the news and responding quickly can help your
business gain more recognition. Your strategy isn’t to promote something new, but to act
quickly to send a clever reminder that creates visibility for you.
Action Plan: How to get started
With this understanding of what newsjacking is and how works, follow these simple steps
to help get you use newsjacks to promote your business.
1. Follow the news
 The most effective newsjacks piggyback on breaking news that seizes the
attention of a large audience in a short period of time. The bigger the story,
the greater the potential your newsjack will share the spotlight of that story.
 Use free tools like Twitter and Google alerts to stay on top of current events
and news as it breaks. Having a smartphone allows you to receive push
notifications from news websites or alerts about news as it happens.
2. Create a process
 Have a process defined in advance for evaluating a story and creating a
newsjack. If you wait until the right news story occurs to figure out how to
execute a newsjack, you’ll probably miss your opportunity.
 Your process should include which creative resources you’ll use, the channels
over which you’ll emit your newsjack and procedures for final review and
approval.
 Set boundaries for taste and common sense. Avoiding doing newsjack
around natural disasters or other hard hitting topics like suicide, murder, war,
© 2013 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

5. How-To Guide
natural disasters, etc. At the same time, recognize that a newsjack will likely
offend some. This is why you need a process in advance – to consider what
these boundaries are.
3. Act quickly
 When the opportunity arises, move quickly. One of the reasons the Oreo
Super Bowl newsjack was so successful was because Oreo had a creative team
standing by during the event, just in case some opportunity arose they could
exploit. Even though newsjacks are by definition reactive, it’s possible to plan
proactively, particularly around certain events that are known for creating
news.
 Move fast. The reason why newsjacks are successful is that they occur while
breaking news is still fresh. There is great value to being one of the first
newsjacks to follow breaking news. The opportunities breaking news presents
for a newsjack go stale very quickly. One goal for your newsjack is to start the
trend, not to follow it.
4. Maintain
 Use Demand Metric’s Content Marketing Plan Methodology to build a
content marketing plan that will help you to promote your content vigorously.
This doesn’t mean sending out one Tweet. It means communicating across all
social media outlets. Put your newsjack on your company’s blog, Twitter,
Facebook, etc.
 After you’ve created your newsjack, the most important thing is that you
follow up with it. Re-post and re-tweet if necessary to gain attention. Insert
hashtags and keywords to follow the trends of the breaking news.
© 2013 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

6. How-To Guide
5. Measure
 Track your content using one of our Dashboard Templates. Even the most
carefully crafted newsjack can sometimes receive a negative response. It’s
important to monitor the reactions of the public to determine if something is
being taken out of context. If you accidentally offend people, apologize and
remove your newsjack.
 Monitor your website analytics before and after the newsjack to know if your
newsjack was successful. Did your site suddenly see an increase in visitor
traffic? Learn from your experience producing newsjacks to have even greater
success in the future.
Remember that there is a fine line between a successful newsjack and one that blows up in
your face. By following these steps, you can ensure that you choose appropriate content
and remain on the cutting edge of newsjacking as a form of promotion.
Bottom Line
A quick and clever newsjack can help promote your brand and your business
locally and worldwide. With a team of creative and responsive marketers monitoring
news and current events, the newsjack strategy lets you promote your business at low cost
while potentially reaching a very large audience.
© 2013 Demand Metric Research Corporation. All Rights Reserved.