#HearingLossHour - How it works
What is #HearingLossHour?
#HearingLossHour is one hour a month dedicated to tweeting about living with hearing loss. We're inviting everyone who takes part to share successes, tips, experiences, product ideas, blogs and also the odd grumble because, let's face it - a problem shared is a problem halved.
What is the reason behind it?
Hearing loss can be socially isolating: social media can by... well, 'social'. We're hoping that by using social media, we can bring people, knowledge and ideas together.
Who is the founder of #HearingLossHour?
The founder is Angie Aspinall, deafened travel writer turned entrepreneur - and founder of Hearing Loss Friendly. Angie is the co-founder of the highly successful business networking hour #Yorkshirehour, which started back in March 2012. Since then, the @Yorkshire_hour account has gained over 24,200 followers and the format has been replicated all over the UK. Angie is hoping that with an estimated 10 million people in the UK with hearing loss, that #HearingLossHour will be a similar success.
The inspiration for #Yorkshirehour came from #Scotlandhour which started as a photo-sharing hashtag and is now a highly successful hour a month promoting Scottish tourism.
"When I went deaf, I didn't know anyone else my age with a hearing aid and my friends didn't 'get it'. I felt very lonely. I would have loved it if something like #HearingLossHour had existed - and so I've set this up to help other people in the same boat as me," says Angie .
Why do we need to use a hashtag in our tweets?
Using a hashtag (#) allows tweets about a specific topic to be grouped together and displayed in a Twitter search so that you can follow all the conversations about that topic all in one place. It looks like this:
Why just one hour?
When lots of people tweet using a hashtag in a concentrated period of time, then the topic may trend. When a topic trends, more people will find out about it and they too may join in. Focusing all the tweets into an hour will help our topic to trend and that in itself will help raise awareness about living with hearing loss.
New to Twitter?
If you don't have a Twitter account, it's easy to set up an account here.
What to do next
If you have a Twitter Account, make sure you're following @HearingLossHour for updates and news.
Spread the word! The more people who know about the hour, the more people will take part. The more people who take part, the more we will all share and learn.
Put the dates in your diary:
Join in on Twitter
7-8pm, first Wednesday of the month
- 4th Feb
- 4th March
- 1st April (Not joking!)
- 6th May
- 3rd June
- 1st July
- 5th August
- 2nd September
- 7th October
- 4th November
- 2nd December
5. Get tweeting at 7pm on Wednesday 4th February!
