Tweet success for Carnmoney box maker
Ian works on getting the finish just right on one of his bespoke boxes.
A CARNMONEY man has described a TV Dragon placing his box making business in the spotlight as “a great buzz”.
Ian Hawthorne’s bespoke box crafting business was ‘re-tweeted’ by the Dragons’ Den star Theo Paphitis to almost a quarter of a million people.
Ian entered his business, Hawthorne Crafts, into the business magnate’s Small Business Sunday Competition on the social networking site, Twitter, on January 22.
Every week Mr Paphitis, who is one of the stars on the BBC TV Dragons’ Den show, offers small businesses the chance to promote their services to his 250,000 followers.
And after Ian entered the competition, the multi-millionaire promoted his business amongst all his followers.
Ian told the Times: “It was a great buzz, the response has been incredible.
“For him to take the time out on a Sunday and look over each businesses and recommend mine was a great feeling. I started to use Twitter as a marketing tool to publicise new box designs and to make new contacts, so I had a modest following of about a hundred people.
“The retweet from Theo has given the business a national profile and more than tripled my followers within days, helping create awareness of my bespoke boxes throughout the world - this is the type of promotion you can’t pay for.
“Obviously Theo is a great believer in small businesses by offering this opportunity and for him to choose my business out of probably thousands that entered was fantastic.
“There was also a significant increase in our website activity so hopefully this will lead to more business opportunities in 2012.”
Read the full story in the Newtownabbey Times, out in shops now...
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Newtownabbey
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: South east
