#Hours What Are They? – Area Manager for Rugby, Charlotte Cooper, tells us her experiences of getting involved in twitter hashtag hours.

With social media growing more popular by the minute and with it the amount of hashtags growing we now see them becoming another way for businesses to market themselves.

How you might ask? Well, hashtags first came about on twitter and now local areas have created a hashtag that happens for one hour either during the day or the evening where businesses from the relevant area promote their business but also connect with other businesses.

I started off with #covhour to aid my Zumba classes and found that I gained a few followers but I also found some local businesses that I was interested in following. More recently I joined in with #warwickhour to promote my Popdance area and a few of the businesses were intrigued with what Popdance is about. Again I found that I gained followers and found businesses to follow. From participating in the #hour it lead to a meeting with one of the businesses where we discussed everything social media related.

From my experience of the #hours I’ve found that it’s been a free way to promote my business but also an opportunity to connect with local businesses who will help spread the word.

So how do you find what #hours are good to join in with? Head to twitter.com, log in and test out various #hours in the search box – we tried #stalbanshour but noticed that the most recent post featuring that # was back in 2016, so that’s not one that’s very active, we then tried #hertshour – which is a very active # – we found out that they run their “hour” on Mondays at 8-9pm for live chat to promote or find business services.

Perhaps watch one of the “hours” to see what type of posts and conversations go on – if you are using Hootsuite to manage your social media, you can add a stream which will show you all the conversations that feature #HertsHour, or any keywords you are interested in, i.e. birthday parties, St Albans, dance etc.

You can then join in conversations with people who are using those keywords.

But remember, it’s about engagement, not sell, sell, sell – join in with the chat, introduce yourself, ask questions, be interested in other people and their businesses :) Just as you would if you met up face to face :)

So why don’t you give it a go? Let us know how you get on and we’re sure Charlotte will keep us posted. Thanks for the blog, Charlotte – you are a star.

To find out more about Charlotte and the area she manages, head to her Popdance webpage here

If you would like to write a blog for the site, give us a shout – it could be about why you became an Area Manager, it could be about the health benefits of Popdancing, social benefits, your news, what you are up to – anything – simply email us at [email protected]

Don’t forget to put Wednesday 21st June 9.30pm in your diaries and join us for a facebook live all about how to get more Popdance Kids parties