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Home / Lifestyle

Factory worker earns $8,700 a year from social media thanks to Kim Kardashian

NZ Herald
20 Aug, 2017 09:08 PM3 mins to read

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Jerome Billingham (left) once tweeted Kim Kardashian in 2013 and has since increased his followers by more than 200,000 after she replied. Photo / Twitter

Jerome Billingham (left) once tweeted Kim Kardashian in 2013 and has since increased his followers by more than 200,000 after she replied. Photo / Twitter

A factory worker now earns £5,000 a year from social media work after Kim Kardashian tweeted him four years ago.

Jerome Billingham packed laundry for a living when he tweeted Kim the innnocent tweet.
He replied to one of her posts, saying: "Do you notice your fans? I love you
loads! #hotlove" to which she replied: "Love you too!"

Within a week, his 200 followers had surged by 20,000 and he now has more than half a million on his two Twitter accounts. His main account gets six million views a month.

Clothing companies began sending him free clothes at his family home in Louth, Lincolnshire, and dozens of other businesses begged him to promote their goods.

He estimates he now makes £5,000 a year tweeting about high street companies, such as Primark, to his 269,000 followers as well as promotional work for E4.

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The 25-year-old said: "I was doing a 6am shift at my work in a factory and I'd seen she'd tweeted something, I can't even remember what she tweeted now, but I just replied to ask if she ever noticed her fans.

"I didn't think anything of it and was walking to work and then my phone just started going ping ping ping and going crazy.

"I thought: "What the hell's happened?" and actually wondered if there had been a technological fault with my phone but then I saw hundreds and thousands of replies saying: "Congratulations, well done son".

"Kim had tweeted me back saying: "Love you too".

The social media star also has another account where he has 274,000 followers, meaning his total followers on the social media site is more than half a million followers.

In addition to his clothing plugs, he gets into clubs and given alcohol for free for tweeting about them.

Kim has a staggering 54 million followers and her single tweet to the starstruck man has allowed him to forge a new career.

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View this post on Instagram

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A post shared by Jerome billingham (@jeromebilll) on Aug 5, 2017 at 12:43pm PDT

Although he now works for Haven Holidays he soon hopes to concentrate full time on social media.

His celebrity followers include boxer Tyson Fury, 29, and X Factor winner Sam Bailey, 40.
He got into Keeping Up With The Kardashians five years ago and has always fancied social media star Kim, 36.

He said: 'I have had so many people reach out and offer sponsorship.

"Lad Bible and Boohooman wanted me to work for them.

"I did campaigns for E4's Tattoo Fixers, Primark's Christmas range, they'd sent me stuff and pay me almost £100 a tweet.

"I do that much on Twitter now I can barely keep up with it all.
"Considering I still live at home with my mum and stepdad, I feel it's not bad going."

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- Daily Mail

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