Newsjacking
What is Newsjacking?
Simply put, newsjacking for content is taking headlines and stories from recent events and telling your own story around that information. You do this in order to elevate your law firm’s presence in the media and in people’s minds.
There are, of course, good and bad ways to do this. The best way is when you find a story that directly connects with the work you and your firm do. Additionally, you want to do it early in the news cycle. That means you and your team have to be on top of events as they happen.
The best way to do this is to take advantage of social media during an event that is newsworthy. Whether you have a market on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or even Pinterest, posting your newsjack there will have more reach and more potential to be shared.
How to NewsJack
- Find a story from recent headlines. It can be local or national, but you must find some relevant way to discuss it.
- Take the headline and your comment along with an image if you can, and post it on social media.
- Back that up with a new blog post, a link to a page on your website, or a video of your interpretation.
- Cross-post that onto your other social media channels and ask your followers to repost or share it (where that makes sense.)
- Bask in the glory of your genius!
Ok, it’s not always going to be brilliant, but if you do this right, then you can grow a decent following and garner some attention from news outlets.
Pitfalls to Avoid when newsjacking
We’ve all seen companies or individuals make mistakes in their marketing. Whether it’s someone accidentally posting a personal message on their corporate Twitter account, or an attempt to use newsjacking for content and making light of a tragic situation. Mistakes happen.
There are ways to avoid making these mistakes and some are better than others. You could be the only one with access to post on your corporate accounts, but then every post and every decision needs to go through you. Is that a good use of your time?
It’s better to put some policies and procedures in place regarding your Newsjacking process. For example, you should make it a policy that people log out of the company account on their personal devices, and that every image used on the firm’s social media have a specific watermark.
You should also make sure that you avoid newsjacking around tragic events unless they are directly related to your law practice. The same goes for the more somber of our National Holidays (MLK Day, Veteran’s Day, etc.) Posting on these days is acceptable, but trying to make a name for yourself around them isn’t.
Finally, try to come up with a corporate voice. It can be sincere, comedic, paternal, or whatever fits you best. We’d recommend against being sarcastic as that doesn’t always come across well in text. You also want to avoid talking down to your audience. Explaining is fine, patronizing isn’t.
