Stockport based Aqua Design is celebrating 14 years in the town.
Established in 2003, Stockport based Aqua Design is celebrating 14 years in providing design and creative services to a range of clients throughout the UK.
Networking was a key business driver for founder Dylan Moore who began his business by supporting fledgling businesses which he initially met through business networking groups and more latterly through his contacts with the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Marketing Stockport and his own innovative approach to social media.
Discovering social media
To begin with Dylan’s social media channel was purely LinkedIn and after, a conversation with a LinkedIn contact Becs McNeill decided to take the leap into Twitter.
Dylan explains: “It was a bit of a bumpy start but after a solid weekend I got to grips with things and then got to work, creating conversations and getting to know other businesses in the area and from far and wide. This had a positive impact as was introduced to the fantastic ladies of the Royal Marines Wives and Girlfriends Calendar which led to the business designing their calendars and helping them raise over £25,000 for the Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund.
“Then I heard about Theo Paphitis #SBS (Small Business Sunday) on Twitter and decided to take the leap and join in. After 4 months, on the 16th October 2011 I was one of that week’s 6 winners. My Email went into melt down and I stayed up until past midnight dealing with congratulation tweets, which then continued for the next few days as I got to know fellow winners and those that had introduced themselves since the win.
“At this time there was no ‘official’ winners badge and a few other winners were producing their own, so I created my own version and was commissioned by Theo Paphitis owned Ryman Stationery to come up with the first incarnation of the #SBS Winners Certificate and was personally thanked by Theo Paphitis for helping with the organisation of the first #SBS winners event.”
Jacqueline Gold, founder Ann Summers, also ran competitions, the first being #MOM (Men on Mondays) which ran monthly and #WOW (Women on Wednesdays) which ran every Wednesday 1-3pm. Dylan also found success here as one of the 5 chosen on the 26th March 2012.
Twitter attracts big numbers for Aqua Design
A spark of an idea during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations led to Dylan creating a competition on Twitter called #QueenOf day followed by#KingOf day for men in business.
Dylan said: “Intergrated marketing, sounds silly to say but from outside view it looks better for the business to have a fluid look across all of the marketing channels, so the new website has allowed the business to flow between printed marketing and the social media channels it uses. This has with the Twitter feed (most active of the business feeds) going through the website and with talking about the business Theo Paphitis #SBS and Jacqueline Gold #MOM wins have had a dramatic increase in the SEO potential of the website, don’t you just love Twitter.”
A separate winners website has allowed the business to promote #QueenOf and #KingOf winners further too, which is been good for Dylan’s business and for the winners’ businesses.
As for the future, Dylan concluded: “Nothing is ever set in stone and nothing can really be predicted, all I do know is that I want the business to grow and keep on having a positive impact on the businesses it comes into contact with.
“I want to bring together #QueenOf and #KingOf winners at annual events and grow the potential of the network. Not going to be egotistical enough to say conquer the world, but will have a good stab at it. Bring on the next 14 years.”