Fads come and go, but they are not insignificant. PokemonGo is perhaps the latest to take the world by storm, and Nintendo wasn’t complaining when they saw their sales skyrocket.
In fact, such was the success of PokemonGo that other brands began to notice and piggy-back off the wave of global interest. Companies began putting out news and blogs related to Pokemon, in often obscure and amusing ways, in order to generate traffic and interest in their brand. “What PokemonGo can Teach Marketers About Lead Generation: Gotta Catch Em All” wasn’t an uncommon headline, for instance.
It might seem desperate, or daft, but this approach is very similar to “Newsjacking” – an approach to marketing which can bring huge benefits to SEO for accountants.
What is newsjacking? David Meerman Scott, who published a book under this name, defines it as the “art and science of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story so you and your ideas get noticed.”
In other words, newsjacking involves partaking in a popular trend which people are talking about, bringing more attention to and awareness of your brand.
The key, however, is knowing when is the right time to engage in newsjacking. To find this sweet spot, it’s important to understand the lifespan of a news story.
These stories can span for days or weeks both online and in the wider media. Some might only last hours. However, generally, each story runs as follows:
1. The news breaks. An event has taken place and media outlets begin to get the first details out to the public.
2. Flurry and excitement. Journalists and bloggers begin to scramble for information, so they can publish material which will drive traffic to their publication. Often this involves spinning a story and speculating in a different way from everyone else, so their voice gets heard.
3. News Peak. At this point, people know about the story and the hype begins to die down.
4. Out With The Old. The topic has been extensively covered and interest how waned. People are ready for the next wave.
The key moment to newsjack is between stages 1 and 2, where the news has just broken and people and scrambling for information.
Now you may ask, how does this help SEO for accountants? Good question.
When a news story begins trending, people search for keywords around that topic rapidly and in more and more numbers. Google begins featuring blogs and articles about the subject higher in its search engine results. Twitter also features the topic more prominently in its trending topics.
If you can newsjack at the ideal moment, then you can ride this wave of interest while it’s still gathering momentum. The key is getting in early enough, which means you need to have your finger on the pulse of the media. So if you’re an avid news reader, you’ll be at an advantage here.
To use newsjacking in SEO for accountants, we recommend Google Trends and Google Alerts as useful tools to keep you informed about trending topics, which you can then exploit for your own brand.
