Using news to create content for brands is a powerful strategy known as "newsjacking"

Using news to create content for brands is a powerful strategy known as "newsjacking" or real-time marketing. It involves leveraging breaking news or trending topics to create timely, relevant content that aligns with your brand's message. When done correctly, this approach can significantly boost your brand's visibility, reputation, and engagement.

Here's a breakdown of how to use news to create content for your brand:

1. The Strategy: Newsjacking and Real-Time Marketing

• What it is: Newsjacking is the practice of injecting your brand's message into a breaking news story. Real-time marketing is a broader concept of creating content in response to current events as they happen.
• Why it works: It allows you to tap into a topic that already has a large audience and significant media momentum. By offering a unique, relevant perspective, you can gain attention and position your brand as a timely and insightful authority.
• Key principle: Speed is crucial. You need to be fast, but also thoughtful. The best newsjacking happens when the news story is still developing and before the public has moved on.

2. How to Find the Right News

• Stay informed: Your team needs to be constantly monitoring news and social media trends.
• Use tools: Leverage tools like Google Alerts, Google Trends, social media trending topics (e.g., on X/Twitter), and news aggregators (Feedly, Flipboard) to stay on top of the news cycle.
• Know your audience: Not every news story is right for your brand. Focus on topics that align with your brand's values, industry, and what your target audience cares about. Avoid sensitive or controversial topics that could damage your brand's reputation.

3. Creating Content from the News

Once you've identified a relevant news story, you can transform it into various content formats:

• Opinion Pieces/Blog Posts:
  • Summarize the news: Briefly explain the news story in your own words.
  • State your opinion: Offer a unique perspective or a different take on the issue.
  • Provide analysis and insight: Go beyond just reporting the facts. Explain what the news means for your industry, your customers, or the broader market. This positions you as a thought leader.
• Social Media Posts:
  • Quick reactions: Use trending hashtags and real-time commentary to join the conversation.
  • Visual content: Create infographics, short videos, or GIFs that summarize key data from the news or add a humorous twist (if appropriate).
• Podcasts or Videos:
  • Discuss the topic: Use a news story as a jumping-off point for a podcast episode or a long-form video.
  • Interview experts: Reach out to thought leaders or experts in your field for their take on the news. This creates unique and authoritative content.
• Infographics:
  • Visualize data: If the news story includes data or statistics, turn them into an easy-to-digest infographic. This is highly shareable and adds value.
• Case Studies or Whitepapers:
  • Long-form analysis: For more complex topics, use the news as a basis for a detailed report or whitepaper that explains the long-term implications for your industry.

4. Best Practices and Ethical Considerations

• Be authentic: Ensure your content aligns with your brand's voice and values. Don't force a connection to a news story that isn't genuine.
• Add value: The goal is not just to repeat the news, but to provide a fresh perspective, new data, or a helpful summary that benefits your audience.
• Act quickly: Timeliness is crucial. Have a rapid-response team in place to identify opportunities, get sign-off, and create content quickly.
• Be sensitive: Never capitalize on a tragedy or a highly sensitive event for promotional gain. This can backfire and severely damage your brand.
• Be original: While you're "borrowing" the topic, the content you create must be your own. Avoid plagiarism and always cite your sources.

How to Use Automation for Newsjacking for Brands

To use Zapier for creating newsjacking from brands, the general approach involves automating the monitoring of relevant news and brand mentions, filtering and processing content, and then rapidly creating or distributing newsjacking content with the help of AI and automated tools. Here is a step-by-step outline with example prompts:

• Monitor News and Brand Mentions
  • Use RSS feeds, social media mentions, Google Alerts, or scraping tools integrated with Zapier to continuously monitor news sites, blogs, or social channels for brand mentions or trending news topics.
  • Example Zapier trigger: "When a new item appears in RSS feed for [brand/industry keywords]"
• Filter and Select Relevant News
  • Apply filters in Zapier to select articles or mentions that match specified keywords related to your brand, competitors, or trending topics.
  • Example filter: "Only continue if article title or content contains ‘brand name’ or ‘related trending topic’"
• Automate Content Processing and Creation with AI
  • Connect to AI APIs like OpenAI via Zapier to generate quick content drafts, summaries, or social media posts based on the news item.
  • Example prompt for AI:
    • "Rewrite this news article about [brand/topic] into a social media post that highlights how we are reacting to or benefiting from this news."
    • "Create a short blog post that comments on the recent news about [brand/topic] with a clever angle."
• Publish or Distribute Quickly
  • Automate publishing drafts to CMS platforms like WordPress or sending social media posts to channels (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook).
  • Example action: "Create a new draft post in WordPress with the generated content" or "Schedule a tweet using the AI-generated newsjacking message."
• Notify Team for Review
  • Add triggers to notify the marketing or communications team via Slack, email, or Telegram to quickly review and approve the newsjacking content before it goes live.
  • Example action: "Send a Slack message to #marketing-team with the draft newsjacking post for approval."

---

Example Prompt Templates for AI in Newsjacking Automation

• Social Media Post Prompt:
  "Write a witty and engaging tweet reacting to the recent news about [brand/topic]. Include a call to action or brand hashtag."
• Blog Post Prompt:
  "Create a concise 300-word blog post summarizing the news about [brand/topic] and include insights on how this impacts our industry."
• Headline/Title Prompt:
  "Generate attention-grabbing headlines for a newsjacking article based on this news summary: [insert summary]."

Zapier or n8n helps automate the entire newsjacking workflow by connecting news monitoring (RSS, social mentions), filtering by brand/topic relevance, leveraging AI for rapid content creation, automating content publishing, and alerting teams for quick review. Using smart prompts to guide AI content generation ensures the newsjacking output aligns with brand tone and strategy.

Reach out to Codedesign if you need a creative digital agency.

---