A regional daily is backing a multi-million-pound appeal to save a world-famous historical brand by launching a unique social media campaign.

The Sentinel in Stoke is using today’s social media ‘tools of the trade’ to assist a pottery giant’s extraordinary fundraising task.

And the campaign to keep the Wedgwood Collection in north Staffordshire – augmented by newspaper’s Twitter drive – has already raised £700,000 in two weeks.

A rescue deal to buy the 250-year-old collection has been agreed by The Art Fund which has secured £13million towards the asking price.

Going potty . . . as retired lawyer Wendy Davies is backing the @SentinelStaffs campaign to #savewedgwoodcollection

But another £2.74m must be raised by 30 November to make sure the precious archive stays at the Wedgwood Museum in Barlaston.

“We’d like to give a heartfelt thanks for the kind messages of support we have received during the The Art Fund campaign to save the Wedgwood collection,” said a spokeswoman at the Wedgwood Museum.

“Our friends at Stoke Sentinel have initiated a social media campaign on Twitter, encouraging our supporters to tweet using the hashtag #savewedgwoodcollection while nominating three friends.

“Our creative supporters have taken the campaign up a notch by posing with their own favourite pieces of Wedgwood,” she added.

The Art Fund says that thousands of donations from members of the public are having a considerable impact on the fundraising – with a fifth of public donations coming from the Midlands.

To join the paper’s social media campaign – #savewedgwoodcollection upload selfies to Twitter – @Sentinel Staffs – and its Facebook site at /sentinelstaffs