So, here I am promoting my Routemaster Mobile bus bar as much as I possibly can. I’m doing about 4/5 hours on online work to try and find a way to get my newly built bus bar out there. Some days go well, others don’t. Some times you feel you’re getting somewhere, sometimes you don’t.

In my previous business I used to often contact the local paper if there was something going on that I felt could be worthy of a mention. So on one of my days of promotion I contacted the paper, who had already done a bit on the bus to see if they fancied doing a follow up. It turns out that they did. It was all new staff in their office but they were happy to go with the story.

This is something I have learned. Pay close attention!

When ever presenting or advertising your business, treat it as if the whole world is about to see it!

Because in my case it did and I wish I’d made more of an effort. To explain further:

I didn’t bother to open the sunroof. I’m extremely casually dressed. I couldn’t be bothered to drive the bus out of its barn so no full shots of it outside. If I had had any idea of what was going to happen next I would’ve presented it SOOOOOOOOOOOO much better. So how it did actually go viral? when newspapers (how ever big or small) publish a piece they share it on a forum where other media outlets can access it and run it if they want. The local paper that published my piece as seen below treated it no different so it was available to all.

So when my local paper arrived I had a good read and smiled. Mom and dad said they’d seen it and they where so proud etc etc etc.. Not being big headed here but I’ve been in the locals quite a few times with my previous event based company and it is nice but not normally such a big deal. The next day I woke up and went on a planned trip with my father to Holland (aka home). When I checked my Facebook page upon arrival at my aunties house in Utrecht it was like a BOMB had gone off!!

What had happened was, the Metro (A national free news paper) had printed the story. At the same time UniLad (An online news tread based around young male activities) Had shared the article. That was then shared 6300 times on social media and (As if that wasn’t enough) because it was so popular the Daily Mail wanted a bit of the action too so it also published it.

My aunt did laugh. She said “The whole of England is talking about you and you’re not even there!” There was a certain irony in it and I also found it extremely funny. My mission was of course to make the most of my (What would ultimately be short lived) fame. It was quite hard to do so because the mainstream media is not in the business of advertising your company, they just want the story to attract as much attention as possible. So I went around commenting on all the stories saying: “this is my company” followed with website details. The activity on my then website did go up but ultimately the whole viral episode didn’t actually generate that much business. I did get a lot of very strange requests online and apparently a lot of women like a semi-famous bus owner….. The radio shows I was invited to feature on where way more effective.

I got invited to feature on a few radio shows and this was effective. Of course on the air I was able to mention my website and was therefor able to generate real business interest.

My story was two paragraphs at most. If other stories in the media have as many mistakes in them as mine did I’m afraid we are not getting very factual information. It’s no wonder the papers have such a bad rep, they’re not very good at getting their facts right.

In the end a lot of credible media sources, magazines, radio shows and online forums shared my little story and this has helped tremendously in the creating of my business. The beauty is, all these bits and pieces have a lasting effect. It not only helps with SEO but I have genuinely had work out the fact that I was famous for a day or 2. Do you know what made the story go viral!? The media laughed at the fact that I’d built a bar that I was too tall to stand in…….. Silly me!