Stockport Design Agency hits 20,000 Twitter followers

A Stockport Design Agency, who has taken a creative approach to Twitter and worked to help businesses develop a relevant social media strategy, has broken 20,000 followers on their own account.

One of the earlier adopters of Twitter, Aqua Design set up their Twitter feed in 2009, and managing director Dylan Moore admits that it took him some time to find his feet on Twitter, with the 140 character restriction and deciding what content to post, posting off the browser as Smart Phones were not yet commonplace in business. Aqua Design’s strategy concentrated on using Twitter as a engagement tool rather than for the ‘offer’ style posts – “that’s never been what the business is about”.

#SBS – Small Business Sunday from Theo Paphitis

The @TheoPaphitis #SBS (Small Business Sunday) competition proved to be a good stepping stone when at 5:04pm on 16th October 2011 Aqua sent their first entry tweet off to Theo and was a lucky first time winner at #SBS

Dylan explains:

Joining #SBS proved to be a significant starting gun for the business on Twitter, which that evening alone had attracted over 400 follows.  Off the back of this I decided to join a small group of winners producing their own versions of winners badges, as at the time there wasn’t an official badge. This led to even more introductions from within the group of past winners.

I then found about @Jacqueline_Gold #MOM (Men on Monday) which was the Male version of her #WOW competition (Women on Wedneday), took part on the next competition day and to my surprise won on the first try.

Her winner badges had already been designed, but no one was producing anything for winners to show off their wins for #WOW or #MOM, so decided to tweet Jacqueline a certificate design and it was met very favourably.

By this point I’d started to get interest from #SBS winners about working with me, which was fantastic.

Throughout 2012 and 2013 Aqua won a variety of smaller awards from @PurpleDogNet #purplebiz, @SmartSocialUK #SmartSocial, @GreatBizAwards #BizPromotion and #DSFOTD which helped to build their follower base and increased awareness of Aqua among other businesses.

Thinking outside of the box – the regal touch

The Diamond Jubilee celebrations inspired Aqua to run a competition on Twitter celebrating women in business throughout the Jubilee year. The design agency created a range of badges for the campaign and starting tweeting about the #QueenOf competition on Twitter in 2012. By this point their Twitter account was up to around 10,000 followers.

The #KingOf day competition for men in business followed and Aqua created a new Twitter account too help administrate the #QueenOf and #KingOf day competitions, run other competitions and generally promote the business and so Andy Quinn @ADG_IQ was born.

Dylan concludes:

A well thought out and creative Twitter strategy has opened new doors for me and the business; it’s exciting to see what else maybe on the horizon for the business.”