“Trend-jacking” or “news-jacking” is a term you’ll hear a lot at PR agencies, including PAN. We’re always looking for creative ways to get our clients meaningfully involved in industry conversations. While CEO profiles and cover stories are obvious homeruns in the media word, industry commentary can be just as valuable. And not getting included in a story on relevant news around a breaking trend can be a big miss, especially if your client’s competitor is quoted.

For the businesses we represent at PAN in the healthcare and life sciences industries, a new FDA guidance can be a major opportunity to weigh in. A company executive can explain what this means – what should pharmaceutical companies be aware of? What are the implications here? With just a few sentences in a news article with this type of commentary, that spokesperson has established his or her expertise – important visibility to their company’s prospects and customers in the pharma community reading the article.

How do you do it?

To capitalize on such an opportunity, timing is everything. Industry and competitive news scans that we compile every day play a large role. We also flag relevant news items for potential commentary in real-time. Social media can help here too. With an eye on your TweetDeck throughout the day, you can catch trending news as it’s announced, rather than hours later when it may be too late to get involved.

While the healthcare and life sciences markets seem to have countless opportunities to “trend-jack” with new regulations and reports making headlines each week, trend-jacking is of course something that can be leveraged for every industry. Whether you’re commenting on the latest Apple announcement or weighing in on an industry acquisition, the key will be having a valuable and unique point of view to pique reporters’ interest and break through the noise.