Today newsjacking is at an all-time high. From Google’s Purple Rain Doodle to the President of the United States posting on Facebook, it’s nearly impossible to avoid Prince’s death as brands and people weigh in on pop culture’s latest celebrity loss.

What is Newsjacking?

According to David Meerman Scott, founder of the Newsjacking movement, “Newsjacking is the art and science of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story so you and your ideas get noticed.”

Newsjacking is considered by some to be the holy grail of social media marketing: it’s a chance to get your content to go viral, you can use it to position yourself as an expert on a trending topic and it can create significant attention for your brand.

The art of newsjacking is making your brand relevant to a trending topic. For record companies or nightclubs to comment on Prince’s death is authentic and natural. Even when other celebrities have tweeted about his passing it’s come across as mostly genuine. What is not so great is when newsjacking starts to feel straight up opportunistic. Let’s take a look a few famous real-world examples of successful and inappropriate newsjacking courtesy of Spokal.

Newsjacking Rule of Thumb

If you’re not sure if you’re crossing the line, err on the conservative side and don’t hit “publish”.

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