Newsjacking, if you're not familiar with the phenomenon, is the concept of riding the popularity wave of a news item for some kind of business gain. And what's bigger right now -- in America, at least -- than the presidential debates?
Well, as it turns out, Sesame Street's Big Bird is a close second. That's because the folks at PBS have pulled a killer newsjack, riding the waves of the presidential debate. More specifically, riding the giant tidal waves that ensued on social media when Mitt Romney said that, while he loves Big Bird, he still wants to cut government funding for PBS.
What happened next was a veritable firestorm of support across social media, particularly Twitter, with memes and parody accounts rising up to defend everyone's favorite yellow bird.
But all of that came from other people. In other words, PBS had nothing to do with the outcry. Until now.
How PBS Newsjacked the Presidential Debates
According to Mashable, PBS decided to embrace the firestorm and pulled the trigger on an ad buy on Twitter for the phrase, "Big Bird." Now, if you search for "Big Bird" on Twitter, you'll see a PBS advertisement. Take a look:
The tweet, "PBS is trusted, valued and essential. See why at valuepbs.org. (please retweet!)" encourages people to go check out their website that educates readers on why PBS is such a valuable organization. Here's a snippet:
Why The Big Bird Newsjack is Awesome
First of all, I love that this newsjack considered the proper channel. The bulk of the backlash to Romney's Big Bird comment took place on Twitter ... so what better place for PBS to headquarter their newsjack? They also took a cue from our resident social media scientist Dan Zarrella and included the copy "please retweet," realizing the importance of making this newsjack of theirs go viral on Twitter. They even included social sharing buttons -- which data shows lead to 7X more mentions -- on the webpage they direct people towards! (Which, as of writing this post, has received over 7,000 shares on Twitter alone.)
But it's more than just the proper channel that makes this newsjack great. I love that the call-to-action in the tweet points towards educational content. And that content isn't just a large, dense chunk of text. When you look at that page, you see that they actually invested the time to come up with really interesting statistics that help prove the value PBS has as an organization -- the value they have to the reader. They've really stepped up their visual content game, too, with data visualizations and even a video playing in the top right corner of the page. They also recognized the importance of aligning that page with their tweet, which is why you see the same copy occupying the heading of the page as you see in the tweet!
But there's something about this newsjack that is pretty amazing besides the excellent marketing execution. I think there's a bit of a statement we marketers can take away from the fact that a non-profit organization is:
1) Investing money in Twitter ads
2) Newsjacking
PBS is showing that they not only believe in social media as a powerful marketing tool, but they're willing to experiment with "scarier" new things like Twitter ad buys. It's also a little ironic that they're spending money on advertising to newsjack a comment about how they should lose government funding ;-)
And like any good newsjack, this one is wicked timely. It's refreshing to know that a big organization -- and a non-profit one at that, which is typically thought of as restricted by bureaucracy -- is remaining agile enough to newsjack. And they do it effectively. If PBS can do it, marketers, so can we!
What do you think of PBS' newsjack? Have you seen any other great newsjacks of the presidential debates?
Image credit: EvelynGiggles
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Deborah Benafield 1:27 PM on October 05, 2012
I amd 61 years old and love PBS and watch it often because of the glut of mindless shows on television, however the harsh reality is that cutting funding in ALL programs is a financial requirement. It is unsettling that this can/will translate into lost jobs--which could likely mean unemployment checks for those individuals impacted. Hard choices have to be made which could ultimately result in a struggle for us all--unless you are wealthy but really that segment of the population is less than 5%.
Richard Strange 1:31 PM on October 05, 2012
Hear the author of news jacking David Meerman Scott in London at Inbound UK 2012. Inboundmarketing.co.uk/2012
Paul Guyon 1:34 PM on October 05, 2012
I love how they are cool enough, and as you point out, agile enough to high-jack the news! PBS is a fighter and this shows it, they do not seem to be like one of those organizations that want a government handout. PBS has has won my support!
cris 1:35 PM on October 05, 2012
There are thousands of other programs that can be cut, including gross amounts of funding being made to other countries and our own military. Spare PBS, a worthy contributor.
Adrienne Dupree 1:38 PM on October 05, 2012
As an internet marketer, it is great that the mainstream is seeing the power of Social Media and using it to their advantage.
Mughrabi 1:40 PM on October 05, 2012
Maybe you should focus a little bit more on fixing your tools ( the keywords tool has been broken for more than 2 days) and a little bit less on writing 10 blog posts everyday .. Thank you!
francis glebas 1:55 PM on October 05, 2012
Thank you Big Bird for giving romney the bird! And thank you PBS for all the years of wonderful information and education you've given us 98% of honest hard working Americans.
Angela 2:14 PM on October 05, 2012
In this day and age, there is no reason for government to fund PBS or NPR. Media has proven it doesn't need government funding to survive. Sesame Street is a multi-million dollar merchandising company. They should give up the government handouts now.
Gordon Diver 2:25 PM on October 05, 2012
Love the timing and execution by PBS. As Corey correctly states, we can all learn from the execution and become more creative for our brands or clients. The emotional connection that the tweet and link creates might still save those jobs, if Corporate America and private citizen's step into the void. Even we Canadians have been known to support PBS in Boston, Buffalo and Seattle.
Million Muppet March 2:35 PM on October 05, 2012
The March is happening if you can join us.
Denise Kilmer 2:38 PM on October 05, 2012
I just saw this article run on Mashable this morning. Is it okay
to do ride so closely on the "tailfeathers" of another?
Duke Insurance 3:33 PM on October 05, 2012
I'm not surprised, its often the creatives who end up working at non-profits like PBS, after all how else could they have stayed on the air in competition with "Jersey Shores"!
William F. Glaser 4:29 PM on October 05, 2012
It's not "news jacking." It IS news. A highly successful public/private enterprise which receives minimal government assistance being attacked by a presidential aspirant who claims to be a business genius during a national debate is definitely noteworthy. Go Big Bird! Go Obama!
The Don 4:37 PM on October 05, 2012
I love PBS ... but Romney is exactly right ... if PBS is that important, it can and should fund itself ... government has to STOP funding every whim of every expectation ... for you complainers of the cut ... get your wallet out and send PBS YOUR money ... not mine ... : )
June 4:22 AM on October 06, 2012
Reminder to The Don and Deborah B: we're talking about approx $1.00 in tax funding per US taxpayer, per year. That's what PBS gets from each of us. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson pointed out on Twitter: "Cutting PBS support (0.012% of budget) to help balance the Federal budget is like deleting text files to make room on your 500Gig hard drive."
Tiny amounts of money involved - so why exactly did Romney go after this vs. cutting oh, .2% of the defense budget? What will be missed more?
Drewry 10:39 PM on October 06, 2012
was Mitt Romney really serious when he said he would allegedly turn off PBS,if elected president?
Gail Finke 10:48 PM on October 06, 2012
Sesame Street merchandise could support PBS. It is a public network with a immense left-wing bias that many people are legitimately upset about their tax dollars being used to support. Mitt Romney had a perfectly legitimate point and plan about PBS that one can and should debate. The Big Bird "newsjacking" diverts people from our real public and political problems, it's nothing but bread and circuses and is certainly not something that PBS should be proud of. it bolsters the case of people who are against the network, which I am certain was not their intention. I watch many PBS shows but stopped contributing long ago because of said bias and because our local station is so badly run. It makes my opinion of PBS worse, not better, and I'm sure I'm not the only one whatever other commenters say.
Marc Ensign 8:29 AM on October 08, 2012
Although I agree that PBS has handled themselves brilliantly in riding the wave of "Big Bird Gate" I don't think it would have had nearly the impact if it weren't for such a large community of people already in place Tweeting their outrage (in a very funny way). Had they Tweeted that post the day before the debate it would have gone unnoticed. Even sending it when they did, if Twitter didn't already care about the whole thing already, that Tweet wouldn't have stuck. This was the result of a perfect storm of twitter goodness!
Red Tiger Training 4:18 AM on October 10, 2012
Hey, just keep on doing the good work!
Nina 11:41 PM on October 10, 2012
I think is a very good idea to hijack not just news but events to create content for ones blog and articles. I am learning to do that now.
yes PBS has shown us a very practical way to do that