What are Twitter hours?

Making the most of Twitter hours could help you reach more local businesses and new generate business leads for your particular products and services, but what exactly are twitter hours?

Twitter hours are specific slots of time in the week where people and businesses come together to network, share ideas, promote their businesses, make introductions, and everything in between. They’re virtual meetings where a group of people are sharing a conversation that can be followed through the use of a hashtag (#).

So let’s get started by looking at some of the best Twitter hours in Yorkshire...

#YorkshireBizHour

Although a relatively new hour to Yorkshire, #YorkshireBizHour are growing quite rapidly and offer something a little different to a lot of other hours due to their different discussion topics each week.

Why it’s good

Aimed at businesses within the Yorkshire region. #YorkshireBizHour provide an online meeting space for businesses and individuals to come together and explore a different business topic each week from social media to planning tools, to finance. The idea is to let people build their network and contacts base whilst helping each other solve their business issues through helpful advice.

Details

• URL: https://twitter.com/yorkshirebizhr
• Followers: 260
• Times: Every Wednesday, 7:30-8:30pm

#WakeyHour

#WakeyHour, run by Social Wakefield, is a great space to meet other businesses, promote local Wakefield news and events.

Why it’s good

#WakeyHour is a very popular twitter hour that runs every Thursday. The combination of promotional tweeting, a popular twitter account with over 6ooo followers, and the emphasis of sharing local Wakefield news and events in the area makes it a great choice for local businesses to get involved with.

Details

• URL: https://twitter.com/SocialWakefield
• Followers: > 6K
• Times: Thursdays 8-9pm

#SelbyHour

#SelbyHour is run by Heidi Green of Business Support York and North Yorkshire (BSYNY). BSYNY are all about helping small businesses start and grow and get in touch with the right people, much like us. In that respect, #SelbyHour is very similar, it’s all about bringing the people of Selby together to show that Selby is very much open for business.

Why it’s good

#SelbyHour is very popular among the local Selby community. It allows enough business promotional material to be useful without being spammy or overwhelming, but features some genuine conversations and online meetings between local Selby business folk.

Boasting close to 1.5 thousand followers and running every Tuesday evening, it’s a popular weekly choice to help make introductions to other businesses in and around Selby.

Details

• URL - https://twitter.com/Selbyhour
• Followers - 1.5K
• Times - Tuesdays  8-9pm

#PontCasHour

Running every Wednesday between 8-9pm, #PonCasHour covers the Pontefract and Castleford areas, out towards Leeds in West Yorkshire. #PonCasHour was designed to support local businesses and highlight local events. They’re a great champion of the national #supportlocal campaign to help people use more local businesses and services.

Why it’s good

#PonCasHour has one of the largest followings of all the Yorkshire Twitter hours so it’s definitely a great place to start if you’re looking to drum up some interest in an event, your business, or a new product. It’s quite conversational and has some regular visitors that you can get to know and chat to to help grow your business network.

Details

• URL - https://twitter.com/PontandCas
• Followers - 9.4K
• Times - Wednesdays 8-9pm

#SkiptonHour

#SkiptonHour focusses its Twitter channel on the town of Skipton. Not just for businesses, it aims to bring the Skipton community together, including businesses, organisations, charities and individuals to share and promote local news and events.

Why it’s good

Just like Northallerton’s hour, #SkiptonHour has managed to gain a really large following for the size of the area. With over 2000 active members, #SkiptonHour is a great place to keep informed of all the latest Skipton happenings, as well as promoting your business. It’s a very active community and runs its Twitter hour every Tuesday between 9-10pm.

Details

• URL - https://twitter.com/skiptonhour
• Followers - 2.4K
• Times - Tuesdays 9-10pm

#ScarboroughHour

#ScarboroughHour runs on a Thursday, every Thursday between 8-9pm. It features Scarborough-based businesses primarily, but does a great job of providing a forum for businesses to come together on a weekly basis to share their news, promote their wares, and make new connections.

Why it’s good

Whilst the account in general is not very active (the last tweet was around December 2014), the Twitter hour itself is very active and well maintained. Being popular in the Scarborough region means that by getting involved you will be able to reach out to other Scarborough businesses and clients.

The frequency of the hour means that you’ll be able to quickly build up a presence alongside your other marketing activities.

Details

• URL - https://twitter.com/ScarbHour
• Followers - 1K
• Times - Thursdays 8-9pm

#HalifaxHour

If you’re a Halifax business then #HalifaxHour is the place for you! Running each Thursday between 8-9pm, it’s another great Yorkshire forum to connect with other businesses and promote your products.

Why it’s good

#HalifaxHour has a number of benefits: it’s a very popular hour with over 2000 followers and provides a good balance between conversation with other businesses and allowing some marketing of your products and services; the other bonus is that the account itself is very proactive, engaging with tweeters, retweeting and favouriting posts, and helping to nurture the #HalifaxHour community.

Well worth a look if you’re just getting started and want to see some results.

Details

• URL - https://twitter.com/HalifaxHour
• Followers - 2.2K
• Times - Thursdays 8-9pm

#GarforthHour

Run by The Main Deal, #GarforthHour was set up to make Garforth better connected, shout about local shops, highlight the thriving community, and promote Garforth events and news. It runs on a Tuesday night between 8-9pm.

Why it’s good

Like #YorkshireBizHour, it may only have a small following of just over 600 - especially compared to the others in this list - but what makes #GarforthHour great is the ‘small but mighty’ following that come together each week. It’s a very active Twitter community and does a great job of bringing local businesses together and sharing local news and events.

Details

• URL - https://twitter.com/garforthhour
• Followers - 600
• Times - Tuesdays 8-9pm

#HullHour

#HullHour is run by Up Market Hull, a monthly small local traders market. Because of this you’ll find #HullHour to be a very friendly and welcoming place to meet up (virtually) and get involved with other local businesses.

It runs every Thursday between 8-9pm and boasts almost 7000 active members.

Why it’s good

#HullHour is not exclusive by any means, any businesses from the UK are welcome, but where #HullHour really shines is in its very passionate local Hull members. It’s a very popular account and networking hour where Hull businesses come together to discuss local events, Hull business issues, as well as promote great Yorkshire products and services.

The #HullHour account does a great job of curating and nurturing the Twitter hour, retweeting where appropriate, making new members welcome, and joining in with conversations.

Details

• URL - https://twitter.com/HullHour
• Followers - 6.7K
• Times - Thursdays 8-9PM

#LeedsHour

#LeedsHour used to be more popular and frequent in previous times, having moved recently from every Thursday to the first Thursday of the month between 8-9pm. That said, you’ll often find businesses just running it themselves and joining in every Thursday regardless and it’s a great place to do business.

Why it’s good

#LeedsHour is a very popular account with over 11.5 thousand members. This makes it a fantastic place to come and share your business with other like-minded businesses and potentially reach up to almost 12 thousand other Leeds and Yorkshire-based businesses.

However, the tradeoff for this popularity is that it can become a very busy place to make yourself heard and follow the conversations; there is definitely more emphasis on the promotional end of the stick.

That said, it gives you the opportunity to sharpen your advertising skills, making sure that all of your tweets are short and to the point and feature a winning promotional image that really grabs your audience!

Details

• URL - https://twitter.com/LeedsHour
• Followers - 11.5K
• Times - First Thursday of each month, 8-9PM

#ThirskHour

#ThirskHour runs from 7pm on a Thursday night. There are four hosts who take it in turn to host the hour each month; on months with five Thursdays they invite in a guest host.

Why it’s good

Unusually, not only does #ThirskHour have multiple hosts, it also hold live meet-ups giving you the chance to network over nibbles.

Details

• URL - https://twitter.com/thirskhour
• Followers - 955
• Times - Thursday 7-8pm

#HambletonHour

Taking place between 7 and 8pm each Wednesday, #HambletonHour is a great opportunity to connect with business owners in the Hambleton area.

Why it’s good

With a large following, #HambletonHour is a great way to get in touch with new business owners, find new opportunities for collaboration, and to get new ideas.

Details

• URL - https://twitter.com/HambletonHour
• Followers - 1842
• Times - Wednesdays 7-8pm

Where can I find out more about Twitter hours and see more Yorkshire Twitter hours?

We have a few places for you visit to find out more information about Twitter hours and see which ones are happening near you:

• Using Twitter hours to find business leads - a blog article by Yorkshire marketing firm Red Guerrilla which explains in a bit more detail what Twitter hours are and how you can use them
• Yorkshire Twitter hours - a comprehensive list of available Yorkshire Twitter hours you can research, join, and see what takes your fancy