EP #032: News hijacking 101

Executive Summary

• Power of Timely Commentary: Providing in-depth opinions on breaking news within the first 72 hours can significantly boost your visibility and engagement on LinkedIn, as people are eager for expert insights.
• Effective News Hijacking: Sharing your unique perspective on relevant news allows you to help your audience make sense of complex events, positioning you as a thought leader in your industry.
• Strategic Content Formula: Reference a popular event, summarize it for those unfamiliar, and teach a better approach—this formula consistently drives engagement and adds value to your audience.
• Targeted Audience Engagement: By focusing on news that matters most to your niche audience, you can grow your influence within a specific community, even if the news doesn’t resonate broadly.
• Leverage Your Expertise: Use your unique background and expertise to weigh in on relevant news, bridging gaps between your past experiences and current industry to create compelling and insightful content.

Deep Dive

When news breaks, if you’re among the first to offer commentary on it, you’ll be rewarded with a lot of attention on LinkedIn.

The bigger the news, the bigger the need people feel to make sense of it. That’s why news hijacking is so powerful - people are looking for an explanation, trying to figure out what does this mean for me / my business / my community.

Longtime readers know that posting an article does little. Reposting someone else’s post does even less. But providing an in-depth opinion on an article (especially if you’re early to the party) does wonders.

At EP, we call this process Hot Takes. We aim to find news relevant to our clients and get their “hot take” published within 72 hours. On LinkedIn, usually if you can say something meaningful within 3 days of an event, you’re going to get noticed.

Example #1

Here’s one example I love, from Paul Argenti . Paul is a Professor of Corporate Communications at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, so it’s no surprise that he is a master of Hot Takes.

You can read the full post here .

What I love about this post is that Paul isn’t sharing an article. He’s not promoting news coverage of an event. Instead, he’s referencing an event (and company) that was already at the top of people’s minds.

Within the post he goes on to explain what happened. He relates it to his classroom and how he teaches MBAs about corporate communication. And he imparts a worthwhile message any leader would benefit from:

Know your values, lead with your values, and never be hypocritical about your values. And when you screw up, make it right.

There’s a great formula here:

1. Reference a popular (and recent event)
2. Summarize for people who are not entirely familiar with the event
3. Teach them a better way to do things

Example #2

I’ll borrow one more example from Paul. Think back to October ‘23 and let me know if you could have scrolled past this post without clicking “see more:”

I don’t know a single leader who didn’t ask the same question. Not from a gaming-the-corporate-system perspective, but from a human perspective: if I have power, how should I use it to be empathetic to an unspeakable tragedy?

You can see the full post here , but I’ll include here as it is shorter:

I love the empathy Paul uses in the second line - I certainly felt the tension of “damned if I do, damned if I don’t” at the time.

He then gives three incredibly tactical questions that - at least in my case - gave me immediate clarity on the right answer for me and EP. And his call out on “misguided virtue signaling” hit home.

Then, he brings it all together with a “put simply.” This is great advice under any circumstance. But when tied to a major worldwide event, it becomes even more salient.

Example #3

I like this third example because it’s both a topic and an issue I know nothing about. Michael Martinez is the CEO of Funcraft, which creates daily ritual word games.

In this post Michael talks about a BIG occurrence in his industry (that few people outside his industry will know or care about):

This post - as is nearly all of Michael’s content - is 100% focused on his niche audience in the mobile gaming community. The advantage of that approach is that this will pop out like a neon sign on LinkedIn to people in that industry, while barely being noticed by those outside his industry.

With news hijacking, you can focus on the news that matters most to your audience, which helps you grow within that narrow, focused audience at an incredible clip.

Example #4

One final example, this time from Jamey Cummings , who is a Partner at JM Search, where he helps companies find world-class Cybersecurity & Technology talent.

While Jamey’s day job is helping companies hire the best cybersecurity talent, his background actually hails back to serving as a US Navy Seal. So, when he read a popular New York Times article relevant to that, he used his LinkedIn platform to weigh in.

What I love about this example is that it is tangentially relevant to his work. No, he doesn’t work with SEALs anymore. But he does work with executives - lots of them. And many of them are likely interested in the topic of this NYT article.

Here’s the post :

Talk about bridging the gap. As a Navy SEAL turned executive recruiter, this article hits smack dab in the middle. And, given his unique background, Jamey is uniquely situated to provide insight on the article.

Bringing it together

If you have expertise in an area, keep an eye out for news related to that expertise. Your experience lends you a unique viewpoint on the news, and a rare opportunity to help people make sense of it.

Timing matters. If you’re in the first 72 hours (ideally 24 hours) of an event occurring, you’ll reap the benefits when it comes to views and engagement. If you’re five days after the event, you’ll likely be drowned out, even if you have the best take on the event.