As marketers, we’re always looking for a competitive advantage. Getting better SEO results, more hits on the website, downloads of the white paper, and qualified leads, more and better, every day.

Figuring out how to create attention for our businesses is the challenge. That’s why I’m so intrigued by the concept of real-time marketing and “newsjacking.” Two concepts were introduced to me by David Meerman Scott.

I saw him speak at a conference and have continued to follow him. His idea that we as marketers need to get out of “campaign mode” and focus on what’s happening today is one way to help us demonstrate the real value of marketing. Yes, it’s still important to launch new campaigns, but it’s not the only mode of operation. We need to capitalize on what’s happening today, and what customers are dealing with today. He gives some great examples in his video such as the insurance company in Australia that put out a release and blogged about President Obama visiting their country and offering him free insurance against alligator attacks. Hysterical yes? But picked up by the media nationwide.  Another example is this lost guitar story shown on YouTube.

So what’s going on now that you can capitalize on? The economic stories that come out every day. What’s your firm’s take on that? How can you add a creative twist to that? This of course then leads you to another one of his great thoughts “you are what you publish on the web.” No one knows how big or small your company is on the web so take advantage of that. The insurance company in Australia wasn’t the biggest but it stole the headlines. Priceless!

You can be perceived as the thought leader on any number of topics. Don’t wait for the expert in your firm to write the blog, interview him and post it in a timely fashion. And when reporters are searching on the web for the hot story of the day, your blog, and your article will be there!