If you have any interest in pr, search engine optimization, how to use social media to promote your business or how to find ideas for blog posts, I have a great resource for you. Newsjacking by 
David Meerman Scott – about a 2-hour read by the way – is all about reacting in real time to real world occurrences and injecting yourself into the story. The basic takeaway is that today you have a huge opportunity to get noticed if you are willing to act fast.
As things happen in the news, journalists look for information. To distinguish their story from those of their competitors, they need a hook, or details for the “second paragraph” of the story that might offer a fresh perspective. That’s where the opportunity lies – but only if you act RIGHT AWAY. Create commentary on what’s happening in the news via blog posts, tie it back to your business and you may find your commentary listed as a resource in Google searches for related keywords before other have the chance to own it. Then take it a step further by promoting your blog post in the social channels, emaling and/or Tweeting writers who might be looking for other information, and posting it on press release sources like Business Wire or PR Newswire.
Scott also spends a chapter identifying how you can find news to “jack”. Being active online and using the right tools plays a huge role here. Consistently monitoring relevant industry and non-industry news sources and blogs through a RSS reader like Google Reader, following relevant hash tags on Twitter and setting up Google Alerts for important key phrases are starting points.
As a small business owner, one of the strongest takeaways for me was the idea that you don’t need to be a corporate giant to successfully jack news. In fact, your chances might be better as a small or medium-sized business, or even as an individual. To quote chapter 7,
“Like a dinosaur’s tail that wants to twitch, requests to act must travel a long way up to the slow-moving corporate brain, then all the way back down before anything can happen.”
If your business is nimble, this isn’t the case.
Newsjacking is a quick, worthwhile read. Check it out here.
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