Trends and newsjacking is the job of posting your own take on something people are talking about this week, and it takes a Skill shape that fits in one sitting of about an hour. The AI does the gathering and the drafting: it sorts this week's stories in your field, names the ones your customers care about, and writes a draft around your opinion. You do the part it cannot do, which is to have the opinion. The method is simple: you bring three to five headlines you actually read, the AI suggests which ones are worth a take, you answer three questions out loud or in a few lines, and the AI turns your answers into a post. What stays with you is the view itself, every fact in the draft, and the decision to post it at all.
- Shape
- Skill
- Sitting
- one sitting
The shape: Skill
This job is a Skill because the brief below is written once and reused every week; only the headlines you paste change. There is no tool to install and no account to link. You open the AI you already pay for, paste in this week's material, and have a short conversation.
It is a Skill and not a Workflow because the input changes every week and so does the right answer. Last week the story was a new city rule; this week it is a price change at a big supplier. A Workflow hands work across a check between steps; here the only check is your own view, given inside one conversation, so a reusable brief is enough.
What this means for you: the hour is mostly thinking, not typing. The AI is quick at turning five headlines into five possible angles. It is poor at knowing which angle is true for your business, because it has never served one of your customers. So the sitting goes in three steps: the AI widens the options, you choose and supply the view, the AI tightens the writing.
One limit to know before you start. A chat assistant without web search knows nothing that happened after its training ended, and it may describe old news as if it were new. With web search turned on, it finds what a search engine returns, which often favors large national outlets over the trade newsletter or local paper your customers read. For both reasons, the most reliable input is headlines you have read yourself. If your plan includes web search, use it to widen the list, then check every story it adds against the source before you write about it.
What you give the AI
Give it these six things, by name, in one message.
- Three to five headlines from this week, with links: from your trade newsletter, your local paper, an industry forum, or a story a customer mentioned to you. Paste the headline and the first paragraph of each, so the AI works from what the article says and not from a guess.
- A two-line description of your business: what you sell, where, and who buys it.
- Your customers' three most common questions or worries: the things you hear on calls and at the counter. This is what lets the AI judge which story touches your customers and which only touches your industry.
- Two or three of your past posts that sound like you: so the draft matches how you write and not how a press release reads.
- Your no-go list: topics you never post about, such as politics, a competitor by name, or anything about a specific customer.
- Where the post will go: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, your Google Business Profile, or your email newsletter, since length and tone change with each.
Leave out anything private. The AI does not need customer names, prices you quote privately, or rumors you heard from a supplier. If a story came to you in confidence, it is not this week's trend.
What comes back
You get back two replies: first a short ranked list of the stories worth a take and three questions about the top story, then, after you answer, a draft post in your voice.
Copy this brief, fill in the brackets, then paste your headlines, links and first paragraphs under it.
You are helping a small business owner post a timely take on this week's news.
Work only from the headlines and paragraphs I paste below.
Do not add stories or facts that are not in them.
The business: [two lines: what we sell, where, who buys it].
Our customers worry about: [three common questions or worries].
We never post about: [no-go list].
The post will go on: [platform].
Here is how we write: [two or three past posts].
Step 1. Rank the headlines by how much our customers would care, and say in one line why for each.
Mark any story that involves harm to people, a tragedy, or a political fight as SKIP, and do not suggest an angle for it.
Step 2. For the top story, ask me exactly three questions:
- What do I think about this, from my own work?
- What does it change for my customers, if anything?
- What should a customer do, or not do, because of it?
Then stop and wait for my answers.
Step 3. After I answer, write one post sized for [platform].
Open with my view, not with a summary of the news.
Link the source article once.
Quote at most one short line from it, with credit.
Use only facts from the paragraphs I pasted or from my answers.
Mark any sentence you are unsure of with [CHECK].
No hashtags unless I ask.
No phrases like "in today's fast-paced world" or "game changer".The pause in step 2 is the point of the brief. Without it, the AI writes your opinion for you, and the post reads like everyone else's. Answer the three questions in your own words, even in rough notes or a voice memo transcript. The AI is good at turning rough notes into a clean post; it is not good at inventing a view worth reading.
If none of the headlines earns a take, the right result is a list with every item marked skip. That is a useful hour too: you now know this was a week for an ordinary post, and you can turn to what to post when you have nothing to say.
How to judge it
Read the draft once as a customer would, then check it against this list. You can reject a bad one in a minute.
- It opens with the news, not with you. A post that starts "The city announced this week" is a news summary. A post that starts with your view is a take.
- The opinion is vague. "This could have big implications for homeowners" says nothing. A real take names one thing and one action: "If your roof is over fifteen years old, get it checked before the new inspection rule starts."
- It contains a fact you did not give it. A date, a number, a name or a quote that is not in the article or your answers is a guess. Delete it or check it at the source.
- It sounds like a press release. Words like "exciting", "landscape" or "navigate" mean the draft drifted away from your past posts. Ask for a rewrite in the voice of the examples.
- It stretches to reach the trend. If the link between the story and your business needs a paragraph of explanation, the trend does not fit. Skip it.
- It would embarrass you in a week. Read it again as if the story had turned out differently than the first reports said. If the post would look careless, soften it or wait.
A good result is short, opens with one clear view, names what changes for the customer, and links the source once.
When to post a take and when to skip
| The story | What to do |
|---|---|
| Changes something your customers pay, need or must do | Post a take within a few days, with the one action they should take |
| Is big news in your industry but your customers will never notice it | Skip it on social; save it for a newsletter or a talk with a peer |
| Is a light, fun trend you can join with a real example from your work | Post it if you have the example; skip it if you would have to invent one |
| Involves harm to people, a tragedy or a disaster | Do not post a take; if you have real help to offer, offer it plainly with no promotion |
| Is a political fight | Skip it unless taking a stand is part of who you are and you accept the cost |
| You have no opinion on it | Skip it |
What stays with you
The opinion is yours, and no AI supplies it. The AI can list five angles, but only you know which one matches what you have seen in years of doing this work, and a reader can tell the difference between a view earned that way and one generated to fill a slot.
Every fact stays with you. Open the source article and check each date, number and name in the draft against it. Early reports change, and a post that repeats a first-day error keeps the error alive with your name on it.
The judgment about taste stays with you. The AI will flag obvious tragedies if the brief tells it to, but it does not know your town, your customers or what happened to a family down the street last month. If a story feels close to home, skip it.
Permission stays with you. Use your own photo or a plain text graphic, not the outlet's image. Link the article rather than copying it. Check before you put a trademarked event name in a promotion.
The send button stays with you. Nothing in this method posts anything; you copy the draft, read it once more, and publish it yourself.
An example, made up for this page
Say you run a one-van mobile bike repair business in a mid-sized city. This is an editorial example with an invented business, not a customer.
On Monday you paste in four headlines: the city plans a new protected bike lane on a main street, a national chain is recalling a model of e-bike battery, a trade newsletter covers a parts shortage, and a celebrity rode a bike in a music video.
The AI ranks the battery recall first, because your customers ride e-bikes and a recall asks them to act. It ranks the bike lane second, the parts shortage third (your customers will feel it only as a delay), and the music video last.
It asks you the three questions. You answer in rough notes: most riders never register their bike, so recall notices miss them; the model number is on a sticker under the battery; you will check any bike for free at the next stop on your route.
The draft opens with "Most e-bike owners will never get this recall notice, because most never register their bike." It then tells riders where to find the model number, links the recall notice once, and ends with the free check. You confirm the model numbers against the recall notice, cut one sentence the AI added about how many units were affected because it was not in the article, and post it.
The bike lane story becomes next week's post, once the city publishes the route. That is a good use of one sitting: one useful take, one saved for later, and two skipped on purpose.
Where this job connects
A take that lands well with customers is often a take a local reporter would want too. If you see one do well, the local news job shows how to turn it into a short pitch. If you want the week's stories to come to you instead of hunting for them, the social listening job sets up the monitors once.
Of every job on this list, social media is the one that comes back every week, and Boomp is software that does that one for you. See ten posts made from your website, free
