Jan 14, 2021
How To Use Newsjacking To Build Your Speaking Business
James Taylor interviews David Meerman Scott and they talked about How To Use Newsjacking To Build Your Speaking Business
In today's episode David Meerman Scott talk about How To Use Newsjacking To Build Your Speaking Business.
David Meerman Scott is a keynote speaker and internationally acclaimed strategist, whose books are must-reads for professionals seeking to generate attention and grow their businesses. He is the author of ten books – three of which are international bestsellers. In fact ‘The New Rules of Marketing & PR’ is now in its 6th edition, has been translated into 29 languages and is required reading at hundreds of universities and business schools worldwide. Meanwhile, as a speaker, he has delivered keynotes in seven continents and over 40 countries to companies including Cisco, PwC, Ford, Google and Nestle Purina.
What we cover:
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How Newsjacking works
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Build Your Speaking Business
Resources:
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Read full transcript at https://speakersu.com/how-to-use-newsjacking-to-build-your-speaking-business-sl092/
James Taylor
Hi, it's James Taylor, founder of SpeakersU. Today's episode was first
aired as part of International Speakers Summit the world's largest
online event for professional speakers. And if you'd like to access
the full video version, as well as in depth sessions with over 150
top speakers, then I've got a very special offer for you. Just go
to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com,
where you'll be able to register for a free pass for the summit.
Yep, that's right 150 of the world's top speakers sharing their
insights, strategies and tactics on how to launch grow and build a
successful speaking business. So just go to InternationalSpeakersSummit.com
but not before you listen to today's episode.
Hi there. It's James Taylor, and I'm delighted today to be joined by David Meerman Scott. David Meerman Scott is a keynote speaker, an internationally acclaimed strategist whose books are must reads for professionals seeking to generate attention and grow their businesses. He is the author of 10 books, three of which are international bestsellers. In fact, the new rules of marketing and PR is now in its sixth edition, and has been translated into 29 languages. And it's required required reading now at hundreds of universities and business schools worldwide. Meanwhile, as a speaker, he has delivered keynotes and seven continents in over 40 countries companies, including Cisco PwC, Ford, Google, Google, and Nestle Purina. It's my great pleasure to have David join us today. So welcome,
David Meerman Scott
David. Hey, James, great to be here. Thanks for putting this
wonderful event together.
James Taylor
So share with everyone what's going on in your world. Just now,
David Meerman Scott
I'm getting ready to go to Budapest for a speaking gig in a couple
of days. And I'm excited about that, because that'll be the 43rd
country that I will have spoken. And I'm a geek, I keep a list. And
I've never been I've never been to Budapest before. So I'm looking
forward to going to Hungary,
James Taylor
so to speak, as I speak with they kind of have that target that
countries on their hit list that they want to go and speak to. And
it may changes over time. So obviously, a lot of people are going
to be seeing this from speakers all over the world, or the other.
Some countries on the top of that list just now that you haven't
spoken and yet Maybe someone's watching this just now and they can
invite you to come and speak there.
David Meerman Scott
That's good. I you know what, I always love the Eastern European
countries, the former parts of this of the Soviet Union, I find
them to be fascinating places. I like that they're not touristy
places. So I am eager to get to any of those countries. If anyone's
listening in. I'm surprised you didn't ask me about speaking in
Antarctica, which I did. That, that was a pretty fabulous time, I
have yet to meet another speaker anywhere on the planet, who has
delivered a presentation on the continent of Antarctica. So I
think, as far as I know, I'm the only speaker in our circles at
least that I've spoken on all seven continents.
James Taylor
So yeah, so you have to go to the other so that that's kind of
insane. Well, at some point, we'll have to have that conversation.
I want to know what that was like. But for anyone, you know, when
you kind of got into the world of speaking, who How did you get
into this strange and interesting world of keynote speaking and
with any kind of early mentors that you had,
David Meerman Scott
I was I was a huge fan still am a huge fan of Seth Godin. And I had
a chance to read some of his books early on. And then I had also an
opportunity a couple of times before I was doing speaking in a big
way to hear him speak. And I was like, Wow, this is so cool.
Imagine writing books and giving speeches for a living. How awesome
is that? So I said, You know what, I'm gonna try it, see how it
works. And I did. Actually the third book, I wrote new rules of
marketing and PR, hit it big. And that's the one that has now been
driving speaking gigs for me ever since. So. Yes, Seth Godin.
Fantastic. I also would like to mention, Dr. Nick Morgan, who is my
speaker, coach. And about 12 years ago, I started working with Nick
and I, his experience, his guidance, his coaching has helped me to
become a much better speaker, which then leads to a tremendous
amount of referral business and a tremendous amount of people who
have me come back and speak multiple years, I just got invited back
to the Microsoft inspire conference, and this will be the, I think,
sixth year that I've spoken at that event. So Nick Morgan was also
a very important influence on me one of and
James Taylor
so I mentioned as you as you're building your, your career, people
can find out about you as a speaker in different ways. I found out
about you through maybe a slightly strange or unusual way, was
through watching Tony Robbins, I think it was his Instagram or
maybe it might mean periscope when he had periscope is the thing.
And it was you up on stage and I just saw it and and you were
talking about this really fascinating topic of news jacking which
I'd never heard of before. And it got me completely intrigued and
and so the Anyone that hasn't heard but news jacking this concept
of new jacking which I did a few you invented this this term, but
tell people what that's all about.
David Meerman Scott
Yeah. So actually, let me back up just a second. Because that I
speak at all of Tony Robbins business mastery events around the
world. And I was speaking, I'm not sure we've done it a couple of
times, but either probably it was with a Las Vegas event. And I was
talking about news jacking. And we just decided to put it out
through one of those live streaming services. And I don't remember
either was it Periscope, or, or Facebook Live, I want one of the
two. But in any case, that had 150,000 views, that video. And it's
just remarkable to me the power of live streaming and what it's
able to accomplish, and it led directly to you and I having this
conversation here. So newsjacking is the idea of aligning your
ideas to a breaking news story. So when there's a news story that's
breaking in the marketplace, something that's happening, that is
part of your area of expertise, you create a real time blog posts
are real time, tweet with a hashtag, a real time video, a real time
video stream, but you create some kind of content that puts your
ideas around that breaking news story into the marketplace of
ideas, so that a few things can possibly happen. One, you might get
quoted by members of the media who are always looking for people's
ideas to quote in their stories, especially if it's a fast breaking
news story. The second thing that might happen as you drive tons of
traffic to your site, who is this guy commenting? Or Who is this
woman commenting on this breaking news story, I need to know more
about them because I need to learn this stuff. Or number three, you
can grow business, you can have people who buy products and
services and for speakers like us, you can have people book you at
events, which is absolutely remarkable. And for the record, I did
not coin the word news jacking. It was invented in the 1970s to
initially mean people, kids typically he would go and steal
newspapers off of people's front doorsteps And out of those
newspaper machines and then sell them. They called that news
jacking. But I popularized the idea of news jacking as I just
described it back in 2011. And it's become so popular since then,
that the Oxford English Dictionary listed it last year and also
named it as a shortlist to the shortlist of word of the year. So I
think it's fascinating that you can I think it's fascinating that
you can come up with a term Yes, the term was used before but not
in the way I described it. You come up with a term popularize it
get people to talk about it, speak about it on stages around the
world like Tony Robbins in stage have people share that idea and
have it become so popular that it gets listed in the Oxford English
Dictionary and I think any one of us can do that. And so it's the
opportunity we all have as as people who who talk and speak and
write about our ideas
James Taylor
so a new story as it breaks it kind of has this this kind of wave
that happens with it and what stays you know how early is too early
on trying to insert yourself in relation to a story I'm in but
there was something happened a while back it was a one of the
airlines stop stop people bringing their laptops onto planes
David Meerman Scott
yeah right right right that was that was out of the the American
government banned air airplanes from seven different countries most
of them in the Middle East Qatar Saudi a few other places from come
flying directly in
James Taylor
so I saw Esther and I said why she that's an interesting one
because what else do you do on the table I speak on creativity so
actually that's quite interesting way you go that quiet time maybe
you don't watch the movies you can be more creative thinking out
the ideas but I I put this thing out I created a video put out but
it was a maybe a little bit too late to kind of catch catches or so
what is the optimum time if story is breaking on something? What
how how quick is too quick? And is there is there an optimal time
to be kind of putting that story out there.
David Meerman Scott
No such thing as too quick you've got to get it out extremely fast.
So every news story breaks in a typical bell shaped curve. And it
breaks it begins to gain momentum as it's beginning to gain
momentum. The first people on board are so is social media because
they banging out tweets and pushing it out in social media. Then
mainstream media, magazines, radio, television, newspaper reporters
are all looking for people to quote as that story gains in
popularity. For example, perfect example, laptops, no longer
Available on check luggage for those flights coming into the United
States from those Middle Eastern countries. And so as that's
breaking reporters like, Oh my god, what does this mean? How can I
find someone who can comment on it, and they do Google search?
Right away report, I used to work in the news business. And so I
know they they go and do a Google search, and they type in, you
know, laptops on no longer on planes, click what comes up, if you
had written a blog post, really quickly, Google indexes blog posts
instantly, perhaps they would have found your blog post sometimes
will even quote you without contacting, you just quote you directly
from your blog post. Oh, and James says that we should use that
downtime on airplanes more productively, rather than playing with
our laptop, we should be drawing picture, you know, whatever your
you would say. And they might quote you on that. And so it's about
being very, very, very, very quick. So what does that mean is when
you see the story, drop everything and start creating content. If
that story is in your area of expertise, let me give you an example
in my world. So back in 2015, and 2016, I became an incredible geek
about the US presidential election, but not from the political
perspective. But from the marketing perspective. You know, I'm a
marketing guy. So I am I, my hobby became going to political
rallies of the different candidates. I happen to live in the Boston
area. And the New Hampshire state is state prime is a is the first
primary in the united states in the nation to vote, as well, in the
general election, New Hampshire was a swing state. So all the
candidates spent a lot of time in New Hampshire. And it's about one
hour from where I live, it's the neighboring state. So I ended up
going to two Donald Trump rallies, three Hillary Clinton rallies,
rallies from other candidates like Bernie Sanders and Marco Rubio
and, and john Casey and others, because it became a hobby. But more
than that, then I would write about it from the marketing
perspective, only marketing non politics. And you know, I put a
disclaimer on every blog post, this is a this is a marketing
discussion, not a political discussion. And people started to
follow me because of that, because I was having this content around
the marketing aspects of the election. I am back to Tony Robbins, I
was edit. I was with Tony in London. at an event in mid 2016, about
five or six months away from the general election, he and I did a
YouTube video about our thoughts of the election. And at that
point, it was just Clinton versus Trump. And we've we've I think
there's about 15 minutes, we put it out on YouTube and a few other
social places that had tons of views. But interestingly, I met a
guy who worked on the Trump campaign who told us that Donald Trump
actually saw that so imagine, imagine that you can create
something, because it's in the news that can be that can take it
that way. But but but let me finish the news jacking aspect of
this. When Trump won in November of 2016. The entire world was was
was amazed Why did Trump win What happened? And everyone was trying
to analyze why he won because Hillary Clinton was supposed to win.
Everyone predicted all the polls indicated all the pundits said,
there's no way Trump can win. But he did. I wrote a blog post
within two hours of the election being called by CNN and the
associated press and some of the other news outlets, within two
hours of them naming Trump and it was four o'clock in the morning,
my time I wrote a blog post, the title of the blog post was the
best marketer was elected president. And it was based it was based
on all the research I had done over the last year and a half. So I
was eminently qualified to write the post. And journalists were
following me anyway, journalists could also find that through
Google search, and I ended up getting quoted in like last I lost
count at 20 different publications. And about a week later, I got
an email from the Public Affairs Council in Washington DC inviting
me to keynote their conference because they saw that blog post.
Wow. So the idea of news jacking can lead directly to speaking
business
James Taylor
and also, it'd be much more positions you as a thought leader in
your space that you have thought about these things, thought about
them deeply analyze them, and you're coming up with new things into
the market? Or is there any topic that you wouldn't go near? I
mean, there's there's always in stories, obviously celebrity
stories, terrible things, you know, terrible, horrific stuff that
happens. Is there any way that you go, actually, there is something
in that I can speak to from a marketing, but I'm not going to go,
I'm not going to go there. I'm just I'm not going to go there.
David Meerman Scott
Well, I think what's important for all of us is we have a
tremendous up anyone with listening in on this have a tremendous
opportunity with news jacking. Because if we're on the speaking
circuit, if we are professional speakers, if we're aspiring to be
professional speakers, it means we have a very particular expertise
that we can talk about, in my case, it's sales and marketing, in
your case, it's creativity. And because of that, we are in a unique
position to be able to comment on certain stories that are out
there. What's important to remember that so you don't screw it up,
though, is that you do need to have a direct tie to that story
based on your expertise. Don't just find whatever the most popular
story is today, and push out a blog post about it, you know, that's
not going to work, you have to have a direct tie from the news
story that's breaking to your expertise, and then you push out
something related to that. So from that perspective, even a story
that has negative connotations, or even a story that otherwise you
should avoid, you might be able to comment on, I always avoid
politics, always, always, always, I never, ever will talk or speak
or write about something regarding politics, because chances are
that, you know, half of my audience is going to be on one side half
is going to be on the other, I don't want to take sides and
alienate part of my audience. But I can talk about the marketing
aspects of a political campaign, which is what I did. So I think I
recommend to my corporate clients never to do news jacking around a
story that involves death and destruction. You know, if there's a
natural disaster, and people die related to, I don't know, a flood
or a hurricane or something like that, avoided at all cost unless
you have a skill set in that area. And there may be opportunities
that you can. But for the most part, for most of us, the vast
majority of people listening in, you're gonna want to find a story
that's non controversial, but that you can comment on, and you've
got to be quick and push it out right away.
James Taylor
And I guess the benefit of that is in terms of your your role as a
keynote speaker, you have material, there's always very, very
current, you're always kind of, I will probably be at those
speakers who are telling stories up, you know, which from maybe
another era that you think, well, this is it, how often is this
person with their research and their expertise. So you're able to
pull from all these things that you're you're seeing all the time,
and you're relating, and having your particular take on that. So it
feels like okay, this, this is really up to date, what this
material has given me is really up to date. Can you talk about as
you in your keynoting, maybe a key aha moment in your career as a
speaker or a label or a time where you went? Okay, this is
direction I want to go with my speaking Oh, you made some key
distinction that you felt was very important in terms of where you
are now with what you do?
David Meerman Scott
Yeah. So I'll give you two things. So first of all, you hit on
something that's very, very important to me. And that is to be
very, very timely and current. What I do is the evening before a
speaking engagement, I scour the news, as well, that morning before
I speak. I'm on Google News. I'm looking on Twitter, I'm looking on
the social networks. I'm looking for a breaking news story. That is
in the news right now, this second, as I'm about to speak. And I
look for an example of somebody whose news jack that story, because
that's the story that I'd like one of the stories I would like to
talk about when I'm when I'm talking about news jacking and the
idea of making my presentations real time and making them as close
to right now this is instant as possible. That was
transformational. For me with my speaking it was a really, really
important aspect of what I do. The other thing that was
transformational of for my speaking was something I learned I
mentioned him earlier as my speaker coach, Dr. Nick Morgan. And
what Nick taught me at one point a couple of years ago, is around
the idea of how far people are away from you and how important
those concepts are to putting together In effective speech, and the
manifestation of that is that I try my best to figure out a way
that I can walk into the audience at some point during a
presentation. And it's important to me to be able to do that.
Because it makes me physically closer to an audience. And that's a
skill that I learned from my buddy, Nick. And those two things were
important for my, for my speaking, I think in in a way, they gave
me confidence, because I was doing things that I didn't see other
speakers doing. I'll give you one more example. The other thing is,
I am a huge, massive fan of live rock concerts. So I've been to
I've been to nearly 700 live shows in my life since the first show
I saw when I was 15 years old. And and I always study what are the
singers doing what is you know, what is Mick Jagger doing? What are
you know, what are these people doing? And I copy some of their
things like, I've never seen another speaker jump onto a stage
monitor before but I do it because that's what I see rock concert I
see singers at rock concerts do.
James Taylor
And I think that there's a great there's a great point from that as
well. A friend of mine would be a Gabriel and this friend of mine
drug great drummer called Billy Cobham, a jazz drummer with Miles
Davis, and bit and Billy said the first night after he played his
big Stadium, and it just, you know, he thought it did really well.
But pa came afterward and said, all that really fine, intricate
stuff you're working. That's great. That's gonna work great for the
first 20 rows. But you have to realize you're playing to a much
bigger audience. Now your movements have to be much bigger. You
just cannot do that the intricate stuff because it's just not going
to carry and after hearing, Billy, tell me a story. It's only made
me realize, okay, if I'm going to speak on bigger and bigger
stages, and Tony Robbins is a perfect example of this, your
physicality becomes that much has to become that much bigger
because you're not dealing on a little periscope screen or
something anymore.
David Meerman Scott
Yeah, yeah. And Tony Robbins case, he's, um, he's now doing, he's
now playing arenas. You know, he's playing, he's playing 20,000
seat arenas now, which is fabulous. Good for him. So but that's
right, it's right, you've got to focus on how to make a presence in
those environments. And so I find it really cool to be able to
learn from people who have been playing those environments for
decades, you know, rock bands.
James Taylor
So to final question for you, and then we have an amazing resource
that you're gonna get, we're gonna give everyone gonna have a link
here for everyone's interest in this area of newsjacking. So final
two things I want to ask you. One is a particular online tool or
app or something you're finding really useful in terms of getting
those things out quick. You mentioned in terms of speed, and
setting. The second question, is there a particular book, you know,
not one of your books, maybe a book on speaking or could be on
marketing you would recommend to the viewers here,
David Meerman Scott
okay, interesting. So yeah, the first thing is on apps, I'm, I'm
still a massive fan of Twitter. And it may be obvious, and it's
nothing new. But the idea of real time communications, that is my
topic when I present and the idea of news jacking and understanding
what's going on out there. Twitter is just an amazing tool. So I'm
going to go with the old standby of Twitter. And what I do in terms
of reading, is I'm always focused on reading books that are
interesting, but composed pletely unrelated to what I do. And I'm
very much enjoying right now a book on Leonardo da Vinci. And it's
interesting to me because he was such a polymath, and he was good
at so many different things. I mean, he invented flying machines,
they didn't really work very well, but he invented flying machines.
He was an artist. He was he was a medical professional, he
dissected bodies and understand how muscles work. He was an
intricate drawer. He, he was a fascinating character. And by
learning from, I like just learning really obscure interesting
things, which I think helped my presentations because it allows me
to be much more broad than then I think a lot of speakers are which
is just focusing on their own effect. What
James Taylor
didn't you know, that book, I've got a copy of that book. I've seen
what I think it is this beautiful, large book, I think was the same
book, same author that wrote the one on Benjamin Franklin and Steve
Jobs.
David Meerman Scott
That's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And it's and it
seems, it seems daunting, it's really, it's really heavy. And I'm
like, Oh my god, I had a speaking gig in Rome last week, or
actually was a week and a half ago. And I figured, okay, what book
do I want to read before on the airplane going over to Rome, so I
of course, I got it. Read a book about an Italian so I picked up
Leonardo da Vinci. And of course it was so big I couldn't finish it
not not only on the way to Rome but the way back as well. I'm still
I'm still reading it now. I've already been I've been back for
almost a week. But it's a great
James Taylor
see they kindly agreed you you have this amazing can infographic on
how to use Jags so people are listening is just that I can see how
my skill set my area of expertise how I can use newsjacking to
build my authority to get get gigs. Is anything you want to say
about that infographic. We're gonna have a link here below so
people can click on that and get access to that.
David Meerman Scott
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just basically I mentioned this chart, the
life of a news story. I have a detailed chart in Vail available in
that infographic as well as the steps here's what you do. 123 gives
you the basics of how to do news jacking. And then as I said, I
think it's one of the best opportunities that we speakers thought
leaders writers have to get ourselves notice noticed, not when
we're ready. But when the markets ready.
James Taylor
And if anyone is watching just now maybe they're in Kazakhstan or
one of the former Eastern European countries and they want to bring
you in to speak they want to recommend you. Where should they go?
where's the best place for them to head to find out more about your
speaking?
David Meerman Scott
My My name is David meerman. Scott, I use my middle name because
I'm the only David meerman Scott on the entire planet. And there
are a lot of David's, David's Scott's out there. So David meerman
scott.com. On Twitter, I m d m SC Ott dm, Scott.
James Taylor
Well, David, thank you so much for coming on today. I wish you all
the best with your speaking hope we'll get a chance to speak
somewhere in the world at some stage together. But thank you so
much for coming on and introducing us to news jacking.
David Meerman Scott
Thanks, James. I just want to be with you.
James Taylor
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