How we got national press coverage through Twitter

“900th follower will get a free news PR consultation in Bristol/London. Unless it's a Britney sexbot.”

That is how a beautiful relationship began for Jay Williams, a Twitter-loving PR man for 72point who wanted to reward someone for connecting with him. By offering his 900^th follower on Twitter a free PR project, Jay wanted “to demystify the process of PR” and to make the most out of his presence on Twitter.

Fortunately for all concerned, @ArcticFarm were the beneficiaries of the prize. Arctic Farm, a small business run by two university students in Bath, make frozen yoghurt (as opposed to meat-flavoured yoghurt). Having been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug in the school playground selling sweets, the pair of Chris Hannaway and Will Hammersley set up their tasty organic food business in 2007.

Arctic Farm’s Chris explains the massive scoop of luck that saw them hit the jackpot. “It was by chance that we followed Jay. He added us and we don’t follow back everyone but his tweets looked interesting. We didn’t know of this competition until we got a message.”

The importance of a PR ‘hook’

The PR hook that Jay Williams had to work with was Arctic Farm’s recent success in getting their product into Harrods. Arctic Farm were certainly chuffed that they were making such progress and naturally, they wanted to shout about it. Having spoken to Chris at Artic Farm on the Wednesday, Jay sent the press release to the media on Thursday and next morning, over a breakfast ‘FroYo’, they were reading the story in The Sun.

As Jay explains: “Good PR isn’t difficult. The trick is to find what the story is, and write it so it appeals to the media but is relevant to the client and their needs, too.

“So many small businesses are passionate and enthusiastic about what they do. Arctic Farm have made sacrifices but are now getting the results they deserve.”

The growing importance of social media

Arctic Farm have truly embraced social media as a strategy and have integrated Twitter and Facebook designs into their packaging. “The idea is to show the importance of these platforms and to communicate in the way our customers would want to,” explains Chris.

In the near future, Artic Farm will be testing new seasonal flavours in Bath and asking people to vote online for the flavour they think is the best one to roll out through their ever increasing number of stockists.

So a big slice of luck saw Twitter turn one online connection between a small business and a PR agency into good old-fashioned print media coverage. With a great story to tell that sells itself, there are numerous opportunities out there to share your fascinating small business tales.