A lot can happen from a single tweet, comments and retweets can spiral, both can be positive or negative. When Petersfield Bookshop received no customers one day, all it took was a tweet to change that.
Image credit@TheTimes
For over 100 years Petersfield Bookshop has sold books every day, until one day when in early January of this year, that it sold none.
It was at the end of that day that Robert Sansom, who has worked at the bookshop for 13 years tweeted the sad event.
It didn’t take long before the power of Twitter kicked in.
The Petersfield Bookshop, located in Hampshire is a family run bookshop, described on their website as “a browser’s paradise”.
The bookshop was first opened at the end of the first world war in 1918 by Dr Harry Roberts. In 1958 it was bought and relocated to Chapel Street by Frank Westwood. The bookshops current owners are Frank’s wife Ann and his two sons David and John Westwood, with Frank having passed away in 2006.
The tweet (pictured above) was retweeted by successful owner Neil Gaiman who has over 2 million followers, thus leading to further retweets and many order placements.
The shop had over 1,000 pounds worth of orders that same night. “It was really touching,” says Sansom.
Now, the tweet has been retweeted over 9,000 times, with over 19,000 likes and over 1,000 new followers.
“It blows me away. I don’t understand social media because I’m old-fashioned, but when Rob called me and told me the figures, I was gobsmacked”, says partner John Westwood.
This show of support is something that is needed in the bookshop community, allowing for them to continue to thrive, and like Petersfield Bookshop, remain on the high streets for 100 years and more.
This turn of events led the shop to tweet again, but one from a much more positive event.