A Chat Hour is a pre-determined time on Twitter, where a group of people join in using a hashtag to have a conversation.

Some chat hours are organised geographically, for example, in East Sussex we have:

• #BrightonHour Mondays 8.30-9.30pm
• #EBHour for Eastbourne on Thursdays 7.30-8.30pm
• #SussexHour Thursdays 8.30-9.30pm

Or there are sector or themed chat hours such as

• #smallbizhour
• #Charityhour
• #MotorHour

and so on.

Always worth checking the hashtags, to check the Chat Hour is still active and to make sure the Chat Hour is based in the UK as this may affect whether you join in or not.

How to get involved in a chat hour

• Log in to Twitter and then go to your search bar top right of the screen and type in the name of the chat hour with the hashtag e.g. #EBHour
• You will then be taken to a view which has two options – View Top tweets, and view all.
• You need to select View All or latest so you can see the conversation as it happens.
• If you intend to join in regularly you can save that search (top right of the screen – three dots)
• It’s a good idea to open a second browser screen and have that screen logged in for Twitter and select your notifications tab. This allows you to check if someone tweets you directly so you can reply quickly without going away from the search screen.
• Don’t feel you have to attend every week or stay the full hour – even a quick hello and brief chat can be beneficial.

It’s just businesses selling – right?

Wrong! Yes businesses are the predominant group in some chat hours, but they are there to develop relationships – just as with any networking event offline. Charities and other organisations also join in as do individuals!

Chat hours give people a chance to get to know each other as people, share stories, a laugh, and other experiences as well as a little bit of promotion what they may be doing.

If you are new to Twitter chat hours are a great way of getting to know people and build a network.

Top tip! Don’t forget the Chat Hour Hashtag in your tweets!

Twitter Accounts:

@EastbourneHour 

@SussexHourUk

@Brighton_Hour

The post Local Chat Hours – your guide on how to join in appeared first on Ditzy Media.

Are you struggling to promote your business on social media? Read our top tips for promoting your brand online.

How to make your social media marketing more engaging.

Communication

Social media is an incredibly powerful communication tool with Facebook amassing 1.40 Billion daily active users.

Increasingly, customers are using social media to contact businesses either via Facebook Pages, Twitter or interacting on Instagram.

Communication is a two-way street, posting is all well and good, especially if it’s reaching a lot of people, but not monitoring engagement will make your potential customers feel ignored and undervalued.

Be human! Don’t be afraid to spark up a conversation with your customers – it will contribute greatly towards your reach and engagement.

Building relationships

Social Media provides us with a unique opportunity to grow our networks.

As well as raising our profile with potential customers, we can strike up a rapport with other local business owners, local charities and our wider community at large.

There will be Networking groups on Facebook & LinkedIn, and Twitter chat hours relevant to your industry or community.   See our Blog on Twitter Chat Hours

Online networking helps establish relationships with your local business community and your potential customers.

Social listening

What better way to understand what your customer wants then by actually listening to and learning from what they are interested in.

Spending time researching what your customers and others in your industry are talking about by looking at trends, hashtag conversations and industry content – along with people’s reactions – can be agreat way of inspiring new content for your business.

Putting the social in social media

The key word here is ‘social’, don’t forget that social media is largely about actually being sociable.

When you’re in a room full of people, a networking event, for example, the person with the booming voice giving the hard sell to anyone that makes eye contact quickly becomes irritating and overbearing.

Sometimes it’s just nice to have a conversation, and it’s the same on social media. It’s okay to share funny stories, staff outings, interest in upcoming events.

• Again, Chat hours on Twitter e.g. #SussexHour can be a great way of engaging with your wider community and building relationships through Social Media.

Use images

Images will help bring your content to life, and help you stand out.  They are vital to any social media post.

• Use landscape images! Portrait images do not work well on social
• If you need to source images – make sure they are copyright free or use a resource like iStock.
• Don’t push content from Instagram or Facebook to Twitter as your images will not be seen on Twitter – a lost opportunity.

Video is King

In light of the recent change to the Facebook algorithm, Video is more important than ever before.

• Be aware of what the requirements are for each platform e.g. no more than 60 seconds for Instagram
• Facebook Live is great for engagement – how can you use it in your business?

Have a strategy

As many of us know, if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.

A social media strategy is crucial for scheduling relevant and engaging content.

Using Google alerts or doing hashtag research can help you keep on track of the topics that are relevant to your industry.

There are also events calendars and Twitter hashtag calendars that can be found via search engines to help keep on top of your industry trends.

Be consistent

Brand consistency is crucial, it provides our audience and potential customers with a good impression of your business.

Ensuring that your brand message is consistent, your posting is regular, and your content is well constructed.

Share the love

Share content from your key business partners, your community, suppliers, and partners that is in keeping with your brand values.

This is a great way of supporting the things you are passionate about as a business – and also, is a great way of curating content and making sure you are not just talking about you or your business.

Facebook Advertising

Facebook Advertising offers a wealth of targeting and retargeting options.

Using the Ads Manager to construct your Ads Campaigns will give you the opportunity to be very planned in your approach.  Focus on

• Your campaign objective
• Who your audience is
• What you total spend will be
• How the advert is presented
  • Clear headline
  • Succinct text
  • Call to action
  • Web link to take your customer to the next step in their journey
  • Visuals or video.

Test different audiences and objectives, and measure before splashing out lots of money on a campaign.

Don’t be afraid of using social media to market your business, use our top ten tips and get your business out there.

Remember, be social, demonstrate the value of your brand, and create content which will engage your audience.

Need help with your Social Media?  Get in touch with us!

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The post Social Media Top Tips 2018 appeared first on Ditzy Media.

A chat hour is a pre-determined time on Twitter, where a group of people join in using a hashtag to have a conversation.

Some chat hours are organised geographically, for example, in East Sussex we have:

• #BrightonHour Mondays 8.30-9.30pm
• #LewesHour Tuesdays 8.30-9.30pm
• #EBHour for Eastbourne on Thursdays 7.30-8.30pm
• #SussexHour Thursdays 8.30-9.30pm
• #1066Hour Fridays 12-1pm

Or there are sector or themed chat hours such as

• #smallbizhour
• #Charityhour
• #MotorHour

and so on.

Always worth checking the hashtags, to check the Chat Hour is active and to make sure the  Chat Hour is based in the UK as this may affect whether you join in or not.

How to get involved in a chat hour

• Log in to Twitter and then go to your search bar top right of the screen and type in the name of the chat hour with the hashtag e.g. #SussexHour
• You will then be taken to a view which has two options – View Top tweets, and view all. You need to select View All or latest so you can see the conversation as it happens.
• If you intend to join in regularly you can save that search (top right of the screen – three dots)
• It’s a good idea to open a second browser screen and have that screen logged in for Twitter and select your notifications tab. This allows you to check if someone tweets you directly so you can reply quickly without going away from the search screen.
• Don’t schedule content and then not be present – this is considered rude.
• Don’t fee you have to attend every week or stay the full hour – even a quick hello and brief chat can be beneficial.

It’s just businesses selling – right?

Wrong! Yes businesses are the predominant group in some chat hours, but they are there to develop relationships – just as with any networking event offline. Charities and other organisations also join in as do individuals!

Chat hours give people a chance to get to know each other as people, share stories, a laugh, and other experiences as well as a little bit of promotion what they may be doing.

If you are new to Twitter chat hours are a great way of getting to know people and build a network.

Top tip! Don’t forget your Hashtag, and don’t forget if you begin a tweet with a Twitter account (the @…) this can reduce the visibility of your tweet.

Follow @hashtag_hour and @ChatSalad to get tweets about when Chat Hours start.

Twitter Accounts:

@SussexHourUk

@1066Hour

@EastbourneHour

@LewesHour

@Brighton_Hour

The post Guide to local Chat Hours on Twitter: Updated appeared first on Ditzy Media.

The month began with the Relaunch of the #EBTweetup, which included the launch of EastbourneHour or #EBHour and also my launch.

Me with Stephen Lloyd MP at #EBTweetup by @Avantphoto

The event was very well attended by the local community and businesses and we were very lucky to have Mr Stephen Lloyd MP and Katy Bourne, Sussex Police Crime Commissioner as speakers, as well as my good self talking about my new business, and not forgetting the marvelous David Ruddle, thebestof Eastbourne hosting the event.

And then #EBHour began! It has now been running for 3 weeks and we are averaging just shy of 50 contributors which is brilliant and underlines what an active community Eastbourne is on Twitter.

I was then fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to take over #SussexHour from Carole Manley who has hosted the chat hour since it began in March 2013.

Hosting #EBHour and #SussexHour concurrently is serious fun and hard work too, but hard work that you enjoy is not really hard work!

Another highlight this month was launching a partnership with Families For Autism www.familiesforautism.com This is a great local charity doing some fabulous work in supporting families of children and young people with Autism in Eastbourne and East Sussex.

October looks to be another exciting and busy month, with my first Social Media Marketing workshop booked for 21 October. I have trained lots of small businesses on getting started on social media previously but it’s a great feeling to be doing this as Ditzy Media.

Keep in touch with me via Twitter, Facebook etc – just look for the links at the top of this page.

FYI…

#EBHour is every Thursday 7.30 – 8.30pm follow @EastbourneHour on Twitter

#SussexHour is every Thursday 8.30 – 9.30pm follow @SussexHourUK

Families For Autism are on Twitter @FFAeastsussex and on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Families-For-Autism/706780012736864

thebestof Eastbourne website: http://www.thebestof.co.uk/local/eastbourne

The post So what’s new for Ditzy Media? appeared first on Ditzy Media.

Scheduled to run from 8.00 – 9.00pm, 45 local businesses / contributors joined in the conversation which was hosted by me.

So 45 contributors resulted in 444 tweets being sent during #EBHour which led to a reach of over 67,000 and 806,000+ timeline deliveries – not bad for the first night!

#EBHour has been set up to provide the Eastbourne community with a weekly online forum, for businesses and individuals that want to network online. Chat Hours are supportive forums designed to encourage relationships to build online which hopefully become meaningful and beneficial offline.

Continued promotion through established business and community networks should ensure it’s growth and success. If you missed the first night be sure not to miss it again.

#SussexHour
The original chat hour for the Sussex region, #SussexHour, has been going since March 2013 and has been hosted since it’s inception by Carole Manley.

Carole has done a fabulous job of growing and religiously hosting #SussexHour which has become a powerful broadcast and online networking hour for the region.

#SussexHour runs every Thursday night 8.30-9.30

After a long time at the helm, Carole is handing over the hosting of #SussexHour to me. Quite an honour and responsibility but I am delighted to have this opportunity and only hope I can follow in Carole’s outstanding footsteps to continue to foster a positive and dynamic network which benefits so many across Sussex.

Double hosting means a tweak to the schedule for #EBHour!
As I quickly learnt last night, hosting 45 contributors and then having a further 100 join in at 8.30 was quite an experience – and that was with Carole hosting #SussexHour! For this reason, #EBHour will move to begin at 7.30pm from next week 18/9/14

Please note the new time. #SussexHour remains at 8.30 as always. Hope to see you there!

FYI The next #EBTweetup will be on Wednesday 1st October at the Afton Hotel, Eastbourne 5-7pm

The post Eastbourne’s very own Chat Hour arrives on Twitter #EBHour appeared first on Ditzy Media.

Chat Hours can be locality or subject based. If you are a business & want to search and find chat hours that may be useful to your business please see: http://chatsalad.com

#SussexHour is the chat hour for #Sussex & takes place every Thursday 8.30-9.30pm

For the ladies there is also at the same time every week #Twittersisters

For #Eastbourne and nearby towns, next week will be the official launch of #EBHour which will take place every Thursday from 8.00 – 9.00pm

If you would like to attend the FREE launch of #EBHour which will be part of the #EBTweetup , please see to register:
http://bit.ly/1qCwYEu

In all instances use the search function on Twitter to see the conversations and use the Hashtags to join in

If you need any help with Chat Hours, please get in touch

The post Chat Hours appeared first on Ditzy Media.