A TYNESIDE cleaning firm is the latest in the region to have attracted attention on Twitter from a Dragon's Den entrepreneur.

Totally Love Cleaning, which was started two years ago by Julie Phair, was named as one of this weekend’s Small Business Sunday Club winners by Theo Paphitis.

The businessman and TV star re-Tweeted details about the Heaton-based eco-friendly cleaning firm to his 144,000 followers on the social networking site.

Phair was out of work when she decided to use the money she received for her 40th birthday to start a business. She spent it on joining networking organisation BNI because she realised she would need contacts to get a cleaning business off the ground.

From an initial job which she saw pinned up in Heaton Post Office, she now has two vans on the road and employs up to 25 people at any one time, cleaning city centre offices and university accommodation.

She said: “Right from the start, I realised Twitter was a great way of getting business in and communicating to customers. To be selected from more than 100,000 that enter Theo Paphitis’ competition each Sunday is great. I’m over the moon.”

She joins Darlington-based crafting company NE Day crafts in 2009 and Gateshead-based Bespoke Radio, which creates individual radio programmes and sports commentaries for customers, in being chosen as Small Business Sunday Club winners.