The origins of the 'trendjack'

Hello readers.

Welcome to the 'Lean Marketing Machine' blog, OFFICIALLY powered by trendJack, but not powered by Jack (as that would imply this was written by AI - which it is NOT). Whilst we love the power of AI and are in awe of how far it has come in terms of being able to draft consistent on-brand, non-AI slop generic draft (especially on the trendJack platform - wink wink), this little corner is AI-free, alongside a whole lot of free insight and advice (because most things are now paywalled?).

So, as the first blog to make its appearance on the brand new trendjack.io website, which I'm hoping will help us bump up SEO (if I throw the terms 'marketing intelligence' and 'marketing in AI' in every so often), as well as garner interest in our mission and vision, I thought, why not take you to the origins of the name itself: trendjack.

So what does 'trendjack' actually mean?

For those of you who are more on the business strategy and marketing intelligence side, or even just marketing side in general, rather than corporate comms and PR, you may have never heard of the term 'trendjack'. I'm sure you can gather what it may mean, however. Like 'hijack', 'carjack' or anything ending in 'jack', to 'trendjack' means to essentially 'steal' a trend. Whilst 'hijack' and 'carjack' are highly negative verbs or actions, 'trendjacking' is by far the opposite.

In marketing terms, trendjacking is the marketing practice of attaching your brand to a viral cultural moment. Or, more broadly, keeping your brand relevant in wider industry conversations that are highly topical and timely. The 'jacking' part of it is when you act fast and firm to insert yourselves into the conversation by being super on it with when a trend or news story breaks and publishing the relevant content that will benefit your brand within that conversation.

It's a critical piece of well-done communications and brand management, and such an easy win, if done right.

Why it is harder than it looks

To do it right, however, requires a lot of time and energy monitoring trends, news stories, industry developments, and more. And then, on top of that, you've got to be rapid enough to conceptualise, draft, review, approve and publish the relevant content in time, before your competitors do. Not only does it require the scanning capabilities and drafting capabilities, but also the capability to read the room, understanding if a trend or industry signal does or does not align with your core values or voice. Making that call can also be tough, especially if in a time crunch, on your own or in a small team that doesn't have the time to discuss.

Trendjacking is not just a B2C game

Whilst trendjacking is more of a known thing in highly cultural brands and more B2C, it is so relevant to B2B brands. Knowing exactly what is going on, when it's going on, and how it's related to your brand's business strategy can be a 'make or break' during the sale cycle. Not being visible, or being too visible in the wrong way, within an important industry conversation, or struggling to get the right content in front of prospects in time before your competitor does, can be damaging to your revenue. And this issue is even more of a concern in smaller teams, where revenue is everything, but budget is not.

The tools were never built for lean teams

Most social media listening, social scheduling, brand listening tools out there are built for the enterprise. These are the companies that buy these tools for having them's sake. They're filled with dashboards, analytics, confusing boolean searches that big teams use together to provide the data, distil, and make a call on what to do next. But what about the smaller teams, that are slightly scrappier, shorter on budget and under a lot of pressure to get the same results as these teams that are sometimes 5 times the size. Or, what about consultants or boutique agencies juggling various brands, trying to stay relevant across all of them, but drowning in news to the point where they're finally able to approve content for one brand, but have completely ignored the other three or four...

Where trendJack came from

That's all where trendJack stemmed from. To be the crux for smaller teams to help them know and understand what's happening in their industry much faster, get the necessary content drafted and out the door without the stress of having to put aside their other important tasks.

We wanted to build a platform that wasn't inundated with confusing data and analytics, but more of a teammate that's always got your back, can help you make the right calls, and craft the right content, without you having to reshuffle your hefty to-do-list.

That's Jack, your signal scout.

Jack continuously scans news, social platforms, industry publications and competitor activity, scores each signal against your brand pillars, and surfaces only the trends worth acting on so you can trendjack the moment while it is still live.

Want to learn more? Try the beta version for free by signing up to the waitlist. We'll be in touch: trendjack.io