This is a pretty cool casy study on how the National Hockey League (who haven't always been the best marketers) stimulated buzz and interest around the playoffs last year by holding tweet-ups in NHL cities. They did this in both playoff and non-playoff cities - so it was really targeted toward the hard-core fan who just enjoys the sport.

When I was with Flying Dog Brewery, we had good success creating tweetups to build stronger awareness and relationships with our consumers. But the cool thing is that loyal consumer who would come to the event would almost always bring someone who was less familiar with the brand, so we got to talk to a partially new audience.

The great thing about tweetups is that you can really build the event around any theme because the objective is to come and meet like-minded people. Whether it's the love of hockey, beer or charity event if you get the word out to the right people and throw out an interesting offer for their attendance, people will come and talk about your brand.