Scaling Up Magazine Scaling Up Magazine April 2018 | Page 10

10 DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT SPRING 2018 platforms like Instagram , Facebook , Pinterest , Twitter and other tools to quickly get its message out to a large audience , Scott says . A firm ’ s social media agenda should be as broad based as possible , meaning that it covers numerous topics that relate to its product or service .
The more content you are creating , the easier it will be to identify angles to news events that could potentially go viral . Scott recommends that you go a step further than simply using appropriate keywords or hashtags and research journalists who may be covering each particular story topic . Then you can approach them directly by emailing them a link to your post , image or video that they can click for more information .
THE EVOLUTION OF NEWSJACKING
Asked how he became interested in the concept of newsjacking back in 2011 during the rapid growth era of social media , Scott lets out a laugh . “ I think I was one of the few people on the planet that could have made the connections necessary to launch the newsjacking movement ,” he says .
From early in his career working at a bond trading desk at Dean Witter Reynolds , Scott has keenly observed how the movement toward real-time interactivity has affected everything from financial markets to Google indexing to the news cycle . Other than a multi-year stint as a part-time male model in Japan ( yes , really ), Scott was mainly involved in the news business for more than a decade , working as product development manager and then marketing director at Knight-Ridder Financial in Asia . He then made a return to the States to become marketing vice president for NewsEdge , a NASDAQtraded online news distributor , where he managed a multi-million-dollar marketing budget as well as a team of employees .
Against the advice of his PR firm at the time , Scott drew on his publishing background at Knight-Ridder to create his own content-rich marketing and PR programs , which leveraged the power and ubiquity of the internet in its earliest days . As he puts it , “ the homegrown , do-ityourself programs we created at virtually no cost consistently generated more interest from qualified buyers than the big-bucks programs that the professionals were running for us — and resulted in millions of dollars in sales . People we never heard of were finding us through search engines .”
At the time , most marketing and PR professionals were advocating against putting proprietary information online , available to competitors who could steal or build upon valuable content . But Scott disagreed . “ Each time we sent a release , it appeared on dozens of online services … resulting in hundreds of sales leads ,” he said .
Scott has followed his time-tested philosophy in developing his own materials to support newsjacking . While he did manage to secure the “ newsjacking . com ” web space , he chose to neither trademark the term nor the substance of his website ’ s content . He believes that this decision was the right one , helping the concept of newsjacking to really catch on throughout the marketing community , across industries and across geography .
These days , Scott can be found writing — he is currently working on an 11th book — and traveling the world , dispensing wisdom about newsjacking and other marketing strategies . His goal , he says , is for audiences to walk away knowing how to use a variety of tools to engage the media , initiate crowd-sourced product development , increase sales and build brand and company awareness .
A Deadhead , Scott explored ways in which the legendary band capitalized on the social capital of its fans to build a following into cult-like status in another of his books , Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead , co-authored with Hubspot founder and CEO Brian Halligan . As Halligan said in an Amazon . com Q & A ,
“ making fans an equal partner in a mutual journey , the Grateful Dead teaches us that our community defines who we are .”
Today , there are even more opportunities for creative marketing than when the late Jerry Garcia was touring . Scott encourages companies to embrace the concept of newsjacking . “ Many executives dread having to deal with marketing issues , but newsjacking can actually be a lot of fun ,” he says “ It ’ s an opportunity for your team to really get creative — and provides great exposure for your company to boot .”
MEET DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT
Our always-on , Web-driven world has new rules for competing and growing business . Advance planning is out – agile is IN ! Those who embrace new ways will be far more successful than those who stay who stay stuck and afraid to change . No one knows more about using the new Real- Time tools and strategies to spread ideas , influencae minds and build business than David Meerman Scott . It ’ s his specialty .
He ’ s a sales and marketing strategist who has spoken on all seven continents and in 40 countries to audiences of the most respected firms , organizations and associations . Scott frequently speaks to groups of entrepreneurs including at Tony Robbins Business Mastery events around the world including London . Sydney , Las Vegas and Palm Beach in the past few years . At Tony Robbins Business Mastery Scott is the lead marketing speaker .