As you know I’m the social media strategist on the Spark and Hustle Tour for the second year in a row. My job — besides teaching women business owners coast to coast how to use social media to build their business and create raving fans — is to create a buzz around the tour. So, I tweet, Facebook and blog during every city on the 20 city tour. That’s why I also decided to document our DC to Minneapolis trek because I knew it would help folks understand what it takes to put on a national tour, how passionate we are about what do & no matter what, we have fun. I believe these are all elements people love to buzz about.

1. Highlight A Challenge

We had a mission… to get from DC to Minneapolis in 24 hours. It’s a 19 hour drive, so we had quite a challenge. People love that: look at the Amazing Race. Yes, Peter and I were on our own amazing race… would we make it in time? What obstacles would we face? I documented the whole dang thing.

2. Pull Back The Curtain

People want to know what’s happening behind the scenes. It’s like watching the American Idol eliminations. Viewers know they’re going to see the good… but they also want  the low-down on the ugly. I tell all my clients to not expose their skeletons, but at least let folks see behind the scenes. It makes you real and RELATABLE! I just advised a new client the other day: Let folks know when you have too much stock arrive at the store and your back room is packed with boxes. Take a picture and remind them that fabulous clothes are inside ready to go on the racks TOMORROW. See? It shows you’re REAL but instead of being trivial it’s congruent w/ your brand. (A pile up of boxes & lots of work means awesome clothes are about to hit the racks!)

3. Let Others Feel A Part Of The Process

W/ each stop… I’d say “Oh… we’re in a new state!” “8th state.. time to buy a lottery ticket!” How often do you let others have a vested interest in what your’e doing? We got tons of comments as we’d post pictures.. they felt like they were along for the ride. Even Peter (who’s not on Facebook) was taking his own pictures for me post. LOL.

What we did on that trip wasn’t rocket science but it created tons of buzz for Spark & Hustle. Yes, most women are interested in the attending the S&H event in their area, or gaining knowledge from the S&H speakers in other cities. But this was all about investment. We’re challenged, we’re showing you what’s going on and we’re letting YOU be a part of it. It’s authentic, it’s genuine & the fact is, people in this day & age want to do business w/ folks they feel they know & trust.

When have you done that for YOUR business?

Hmmm… got you thinking on that one, didn’t I?

Don’t appear too perfect on social media. Don’t sell all the time. Don’t exclude your customer. Instead, INCLUDE them!

Cindy and Peter’s excellent adventure had a social media reach of 48,272.
I use the web-tool Tweet Reach to gauge my social media reach. Tweet Reach defines social media reach as the number of unique people who received tweets about your search query during this time period. Think of reach as the size of your unique potential audience for this topic.

That’s the kind of buzz money simply can’t buy!!

Click here to see the Full Twitter Reach Report on Cindy & Peter’s Excellent Adventure

Special Thanks to all of our S&H Sponsors: