What does it take to respond to the news?
Responding to the news, sometimes called newsjacking, means joining a conversation that's already happening because of a story. A new report says most operations teams still run their weekly numbers out of spreadsheets. A large competitor raises prices. A regulator changes a rule your customers have to follow. If your company has something real to say about it, a quick, specific response can put you in front of people who are reading about that subject right now.
This is how competitors end up quoted in timely stories. They aren't luckier than you. They saw the story early, they had a point of view ready, and they said it while the story was still moving.
Doing that well takes four things:
- Knowing what to watch. Your company name is the obvious search term, but the best opportunities rarely mention you. They mention the problem you solve, the customers you serve, or the competitor you're compared with.
- Finding stories while they're fresh. A story on industry news is usually worth responding to for a day or two. After that, everyone who wanted to comment already has.
- Judging which stories are worth a response. Most matches are noise. A story is worth your time when it connects to a position your company already holds and you can add something, such as a number, an example, or a disagreement.
- Writing the response quickly. The response has to be specific, accurate about the story, and in your voice, and it has to go to the right place: a LinkedIn post, your blog, or the reporter who wrote the story.
Each step is small, but together they need someone checking the news every day and dropping other work when the right story appears. Most small teams can't keep that up, so they find out about the story a week later, when a competitor's take is already circulating.
That's work an AI agent does well. It can check the news every hour without getting bored, read every match against what your company stands for, and have a draft ready before you've finished your coffee. Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. Here's how it finds news you can respond to and helps you respond in time.
How Kite finds news stories you can respond to
Kite starts with what it already knows about your company. During onboarding, it researched your positioning, products, customers, and competitors and saved them in your team's knowledge base. That tells it which subjects your company has a right to talk about and what you'd likely say.
From there, Kite turns your positioning into topics worth watching and proposes them to you. It finds recent stories on those topics in three ways: when you ask, on a schedule, and through a standing watch. When a story matches, Kite reads the original source, checks whether the story connects to something you actually argue, and drops the ones that don't. For the stories that pass, it writes the response, tells you where it should go and how long the window is, and waits for your approval.
After you respond, Kite can follow how the post performs, so later suggestions lean toward the kinds of stories and responses that worked for you.
- Decide which topics are worth watching
- Find fresh stories while you can still respond
- Judge which stories are worth a response
- Write the response for the right place
- Learn which stories and responses work for you
Decide which topics are worth watching
Kite builds the watch list from your positioning, because the news you can respond to is news about the argument your company makes. If you sell reporting software to mid-market operations teams and your pitch is that those teams have outgrown spreadsheets, a news story about spreadsheet reporting is an opportunity, even though it never names you.
Kite proposes a short set of topics in the words a reporter would use. For that reporting software company, the list might look like this:
- "operations reporting spreadsheets" and "ops teams spreadsheets," which are the heart of the positioning
- the names of the two competitors your site compares itself with
- "mid-market operations teams," which is the audience
- a regulation or industry report your customers care about, if one comes up regularly
You can add topics, remove them, or change the wording before Kite starts. Narrow, specific topics produce fewer matches and far better ones. "AI" or "software" would bury you in stories you have nothing to say about.
Find fresh stories while you can still respond
Kite finds recent news on your topics in three ways, depending on how quickly you need to hear about it.
When you ask. Ask Kite something like "What happened in the news this week that we could respond to?" Kite searches news coverage from the last few days, reads the stories it finds, and looks at public posts on X and Hacker News to see whether people are already discussing them. It comes back with a short list. Each story has its headline, publication, date, and link, along with why it matters to your company and the response Kite suggests.
On a schedule. You can ask Kite to run the same scan every weekday morning or once a week. Each run starts fresh, and the results arrive as their own conversation in the Kite web app or by email from your team's Kite address. If your team uses Slack, they can go to the channel you choose.
As a standing watch. Once you add Kite to Slack, it can also keep a watch on your topics and stay quiet until something new appears. The watch checks as often as once an hour and replies in the Slack thread where you asked for it. This is the best fit for a story you want to hear about within hours rather than the next morning, such as coverage of a competitor launch or an industry report you know is coming.
If you write on LinkedIn under your own name and Kite runs your weekly LinkedIn plan, the plan also brings up to five fresh topics each Monday, including news in your field. Each one arrives as a question for you to answer with a quick take, and Kite drafts a post from your reply.
Playbooks for this step
- How to get Slack alerts when your company is in the newsSet up a watch that tells you in Slack whenever a news story mentions your company, so you can thank, correct, or build on the coverage.Coming soon
Judge which stories are worth a response
Kite treats a match as a candidate, not an opportunity. Before it brings a story to you, it answers three questions.
The first is whether the story connects to your positioning. A watch on "ops teams spreadsheets" will sometimes match a story about record venture funding for AI startups because the article mentions spreadsheets in passing. Your company has nothing to add to that story, so Kite stays quiet about it.
The second is whether the story is still fresh enough to join. Kite looks at when the story was published and whether people are still discussing it. A report released this morning is worth a response today. The same report three weeks later is better used as a source in a blog post.
The third is whether the facts hold up. Kite reads the original source, such as the report, the press release, or the regulator's announcement, rather than relying on a summary. If a headline says "most operations teams still use spreadsheets" and the report actually says 61% of mid-market operations teams build their weekly reporting in spreadsheets, Kite uses the report's figure and names the report. Your response repeats the story's facts exactly, so a reader who checks finds what you said.
When a story passes all three, Kite brings it to you with the reasoning: what the story says, how it connects to your company, and why it's worth responding to now.
Write the response for the right place
Kite brings you the response itself, written in full and ready to approve, along with where it should go and how long you have. It uses your team's notes on where you publish. If your knowledge base says short reactions go on your LinkedIn page and longer pieces go on your blog, Kite follows that.
Here's what that looks like for the reporting software company. A report comes out this morning saying 61% of mid-market operations teams still build their weekly reporting in spreadsheets. Kite's message says the report backs your repositioning around operations teams, that the window is today or tomorrow, and that the best place is a LinkedIn post. Then it gives you the post. It opens with the report's finding and credits the report. Next, it ties the finding to the cost your comparison page already describes and ends with a practical point for operations leads. If the post would be stronger with a number from your own customers, Kite asks you for it rather than guessing.
The response can take a few forms, depending on the story:
- A LinkedIn post. Kite drafts the post and shows it in the conversation as it will look on LinkedIn. LinkedIn drafts wait in Kite's Social tab for the author's approval, and the author copies the post to LinkedIn and marks it posted.
- A quick blog post. For a story that deserves more than a post, Kite writes a short article with your view and a link to the original source. It publishes the article on a website it hosts, or through your connected content system, once you approve it.
- A note to the reporter. When the story is still developing, a reporter may want an expert view for a follow-up. Kite works out who wrote the story, finds a professional email address when its sources have one, and drafts a short note offering your comment with one specific point you can speak to. The note goes from your team's Kite address once you approve it. For a full press campaign around your own announcement, see Run a media outreach campaign.
- Posts for other channels. Kite adapts the response for X or other social accounts, and it publishes through a connected account once you approve it. For a channel you haven't connected, it gives you the text ready to paste.
Every response stays tied to your positioning. Kite doesn't invent a hot take to ride a trending story. It says what your company already believes, applied to what just happened.
Learn which stories and responses work for you
Kite keeps track of what you respond to and how it lands, so its suggestions improve over time. When you change a draft before approving it, Kite notices the edit. If the same kind of change shows up across several posts, such as shorter openings or no closing question, it applies that change from then on.
Kite also reads how the responses perform. For your LinkedIn posts, it compares each post's reactions with your usual. For a connected social account or a blog post on a site Kite hosts, it reads reach, clicks, and visits. Over a few weeks, that shows which topics are worth watching more closely and which can be dropped from the list.
What you get
A watch list built from your positioning
The topics, competitors, and industry subjects your company has a right to talk about, written in the words reporters use.
A short list of fresh stories
Each story comes with its headline, publication, date, and link, plus why it matters to your company and how long the window is likely to stay open.
Fewer, better alerts
Kite drops off-topic matches before they reach you, so the stories you do hear about are worth reading.
Responses ready to approve
Finished LinkedIn posts, short blog posts, reporter notes, and posts for other channels, each with the story's facts checked against the original source.
A record of what worked
Performance on the responses you published, used to sharpen the watch list and the next round of drafts.
How to get started
Start by telling Kite what you're after in plain language. You might say, "Flag chances to jump on news about operations teams still running reporting out of spreadsheets," or "Every morning, find industry news we could post about on LinkedIn."
Kite proposes the topics it plans to watch and how often to check, based on what it knows about your positioning and competitors. You adjust the list and approve it. For a quick start, ask Kite to look at the last week of news on those topics right away so you can see what kinds of stories it brings back.
You can work with Kite in your browser or in Slack. On-demand searches and scheduled scans work in the Kite web app, and scheduled results can also come to you by email. Add Kite to Slack and it also keeps standing watches that check as often as once an hour and alert you in the thread where you asked.
You don't need to connect anything for Kite to search the news, because its news search is built in. Connect your social accounts or your website's content system when you want Kite to publish responses there. Kite asks before it publishes or sends anything, and once you trust its judgment, you can give it more room to post on its own.
Integrations used to find and respond to the news
Kite's news search is built in, so it can start finding stories without a separate account. Connections come in when you want Kite to publish responses where your audience already reads them.
Common questions
How quickly do you need to respond to a news story?
For most industry news, you have about a day or two before the conversation moves on. For a breaking story, the window can be a matter of hours. That's why the watch list matters more than writing speed: a response that's ready the morning after the story broke beats a better one that's ready a week later. Kite's standing watches check as often as once an hour, and its daily scans suit stories where tomorrow morning is soon enough.
Which news stories should a brand skip?
Skip stories where your company has nothing specific to add, and skip stories about tragedies, layoffs, or other hardship that your product didn't help with. A good test is whether your response would still make sense if your company's name were removed from it. If it would, it's a real point of view. If it only works as a way to mention your product, it's better left alone. Kite applies the same test when it decides which matches to bring to you.
How is this different from Google Alerts or brand monitoring?
Google Alerts and most brand monitoring tools send you every new mention of the words you chose, and you decide which ones matter. Kite reads each match against your positioning, drops the off-topic ones, confirms the facts from the original source, and brings the ones worth acting on with a drafted response. If you mainly want to know what people say about your own company, see Monitor brand reputation and public mentions. For a broader view of dedicated tools, see The Best Media Monitoring Tools for Finding News You Can Respond To Coming soon .
How do I find trending stories that relate to my business?
Start from your business, not from what's trending. A topic that's popular everywhere is rarely one your company can say something useful about, while a smaller story squarely about your customers' problem often is. Kite begins with the subjects behind your positioning, then looks for recent coverage and discussion on X and Hacker News to see which of those stories people are talking about right now.
Can Kite respond to conversations on Reddit or X as well as news stories?
Yes, though that's a different job. News stories give you something to comment on publicly, while conversations on Reddit, X, and other communities are often people asking for help with the problem you solve. Kite can find those threads and suggest replies that help rather than sell. See Find online conversations where buyers need you.