A BORDERS businesswoman's tweets have taken her all the way to the Scottish Parliament.

Fiona Drane from St Boswells helped create one of Twitter's most successful hashtags to promote Scotland along with a team of volunteers from all over Scotland.

Recently they were invited to the Scottish Parliament to attend a debate on the popular creation, which reaches audiences of over half a million people.

Launched in August 2011 by travel fan Douglas Baird, monthly Twitter tourism chat #Scotlandhour is managed and hosted by a volunteers and social media enthusiasts.

The team includes Fiona Drane, of Selkirk based Bright Light Marketing, along with other tourism sector workers including Lesley Judge, Aileen Lamb, Mark Calpin and Susan McNaughton.

Fiona said: "The Scotlandhour Twitter chat has been phenomenally successful, we really have been blown away by the following we have attracted from all parts of the globe, both from interested travellers as well as dedicated Scottish tourism providers, travel bloggers and writers.

"It was fantastic to be asked to join this debate at the Scottish Parliament - a real acknowledgement of what we have achieved so far in creating a professionally run and informative regular monthly Scottish tourism chat on Twitter.

"We are all volunteers who are busy with our own work but we are committed to giving potential tourists and visitors in and to Scotland the best real-time information to help make their trips to Scotland a fulfilling one." #Scotlandhour takes place on Twitter the last Wednesday of each month from 9 to 10pm with guest businesses and the Scotland Hour team of regulars hosting it.