Twitter has been going Barmy for our teenage owner this week!
Seventeen-years-old Eve, who is in her first year of A level study at Shelley College near Huddersfield, has won a number of awards since setting up Barmy – including finishing joint runner-up in the Aspiring Entrepreneur category of the national Making Business Happen awards in Cardiff seven days ago.
And this week Eve (pictured below) won a highly sought-after Twitter prize, being named as a #SBS winner in a competition run by one of the UK’s most successful businessmen, multi-millionaire and former BBC Dragons Den Theo Paphitis, who is also Chairman of Ryman Stationery.
Small Business Sunday, shortened to the hashtag #SBS on Twitter, was created by Mr Paphitis in October 2010. He rewards small businesses that describe themselves in one tweet, sent to him, on Sunday evenings between 5pm and 7.30pm.
Then, every Monday night at 8pm, Mr Paphitis reviews and chooses his favourite lucky six who are then re-tweeted. As he has over 450,000 followers, this provides a massive boost to the chosen lucky businesses.
Eve’s winning tweet was: #SBS I’m a 17-year-old who is Making Business Happen! An award winner who is #Barmy about bunting! @TheoPaphitis
The benefits of the award range from increased Twitter followers, to positive media publicity and crucially for many, increased sales!
Says Mr Paphitis: “I admire people who have passion and energy. If you cannot bore your friends to death about your own small business then something is seriously wrong.
“I was struck by the number of business owners on Twitter who wanted to tell me about their new products and services. Small Business Sunday was born so that people have a specific time slot to tweet and can pitch their ‘sell’ directly to me.
“All my businesses are privately owned and entrepreneurial in spirit. My stationery firm Ryman has thousands of small business customers, which is why they are now kindly sponsoring #SBS. I want to offer benefits to #SBS winners, past and present and the link with the stationery retailer allows me to do this, so thank you CEO Kypros Kyprianou and Co.
“My vision is that everyone who has ever won an #SBS re-tweet from me becomes part of a friendly club. Like-minded individuals can share successes and learnings. A website will give a valuable profile to the winners chosen to date and should help those who have not yet won but want some tips on how to do so, plus news on events and activities of interest.
“I know I have been lucky in business and I am keen now to spread goodwill to others, of course not forgetting that very often, you make your own luck by making use of every opportunity.”
- Late last year Eve won a similar Twitter award, being named a #WOW winner, by Jacqueline Gold, the head of Ann Summers and Knickerbox.
