We've all received hundreds and hundreds of emails telling us about the long lost relatives who've died leaving us gazillions of dollars, pounds, euro (insert your currency here), or money we've won in a lottery or sweepstake.

In any one day I've been made richer by millions nay billions of dollars from these unsolicited emails.

Cancelling one email address has dramatically reduced the frequency of these.  Yet in the last few minutes, I have received an SMS (nothing special about that you say) expect that the number of people who have my mobile number is less than 10, stating that I had won 1 million EUROs.

Supposedly this has come from the Orange Mobile in the UK (which is the carrier I use when in the UK) and all it asks for is my name and mobile number.  Funny that, as they have sent it to my mobile, it should be on their records.....

Watch out for this one.

PS The phone number is country code +41 Switzerland but the next two digits don't belong in any city codes for Swiss numbers...

I don't know about you, but every week I received at least two calls (usually from overseas) that say they can reduce my phone bills.  How many do you get?  Well I guess this one is a little bit difficult and my curiousity was piqued so I asked them to give me the details in writing and this is what I received..... what do you think?

From an email address Merla Rodriguez [m_rodriguez_ella@yahoo.com]

I joined twitter some 9 months ago amid a rash of enthusiasm and the knowledge that “social media” was going to be a BIG part of all business marketing.

In the first 3 months amassed a following of 2,000+ followers and in the past 6 months a miserly 1,000.  Now what is this telling me?

1. I’m getting fussier who I follow back – Yes – no bots or automated accounts are followed nor do I follow anyone that doesn’t engage in conversations
2. I frequently “unfollow” those not following me – I keep a few (eg news, some media, etc)
3. The volume of “noise” is getting louder and it’s more difficult to engage in conversations
4. Twitter as part of “social media” is firstly not all that social (with some notable exceptions of course and you know who you are)
5. It does not lead to increased business or even an increase in referrals!

When I set out on this journey – the aim was to give it one year to educate (both followers and myself), motivate people to be interested in workplace safety and ultimately gain some new business.

Were these goals achieved? Yes and no.  I have learned all manner of things on a huge range of topics.  Hopefully I have alerted people to some of the hazards in the workplace, but has it had any affect on business – the answer to that is a resounding no.

Yes social media informs; yes it keeps your name “out there” but where is “out there” in terms of social media and doing business?

I’ve observed many twitter accounts with large numbers of followers who were there last year – no longer really active – having gone the automated route. Real people who have fallen off the twitter tree for whatever reason. See what makes a real person on twitter http://bit.ly/6lCw67

Huge volumes of bots and automated trawlers ply their wares and are duly ignored.  I no longer smile when I see tweets that purport to get you thousands of followers when they have a minimal number themselves.  I no longer spend many hours seeking out new people to follow and I no longer believe that the time spent on twitter (which in the beginning was huge) has a the ability to provide a monetary return in a business.

Here’s why:

1. Less than 5% of my clients have a twitter account
2. Those that do have accounts, tweet few and far between
3. The number of businesses generally tweeting and engaging is minuscule

Many kind and lovely people interact with me – thought provoking comments are made, shared and commented on but is that all there is?  It does seem so.

My social media venture includes, facebook fan page, youtube, four separate blogs, one for workplace health and safety, because that’s what we do; one for client news; one for business and one just for fun.

Whilst all the posts in my four blogs have a fairly solid page views – only a handful have subscribed and the comments are even fewer.  Perhaps I need to attend lessons on blogging!!? 

In analysing my venture into social media, my hypothesis is this:

“For small-medium sized businesses aiming to grow – twitter does not “cut the mustard”

What do you think?

In an earlier post http://bit.ly/9Z24bL I asked if using true-twit validation software was a turn off to attracting new followers.

 Did it achieve what I wanted?

The aim was to save time looking at twitter streams to see if people following me were automated bots or whether they were REAL people http://bit.ly/6lCw67 that I want to connect and interact with.

After three weeks I turned off true-twit validation because:

1.      Some of the verified accounts were “bots” that occasionally morphed into humans and “verified” their accounts and

2.      Some of the humans tweeted more gibberish and rubbish than I wanted to see in a lifetime, let alone in a day!

3.      I started to ignore the validations and was checking the twitter stream anyway (defeating the purpose of the programme)

On the plus side the number of followers increased much faster (even allowing for the bots that I did not follow back) and

The final solution:
I found another programme called “cool previews” (an add-on to Firefox only) which allows to me look at the twitter stream without having to click through.

So true-twit validation has been banished into cyberspace and will not be making a re-appearance any time soon as part of my social media tools.

Have you used it? Are you using it?

Why is Bill Gates is so rich – Answer: versions

Guest post by Wayne Wright, Principal WM Wright & Co, Chartered Accountants

How much is your business worth?

How do I know how much my business is really worth?  We’ve been talking to a new investor and are starting to doubt our assumptions about its value.

Business owners are often so invested in their business they lose sight of what the value of their business really is.  If you put your heart and soul, and sweat and tears into the business you expect it will be worth the effort. 

If you own a publicly listed company or an interest in one, you know what the market says your interest in that business is worth on any day of the year.  A private business is very different.  For most businesses, like yours, there is no ready or automatic market that will tell you what the business is worth.

So, how do you know if your perception of the value of your business is fair, below what it should be, or totally unrealistic?  Knowing what your business is worth should be a fundamental of being in business not just for sale or succession.   Proving the value of your business is critical if you are looking to borrow, to understand where you are growing the business, for assessing business performance and the adequacy of your profits, or if you are looking to complete a restructure.

The value of your business is a key benchmark.  If you don’t know what it is worth then you have no real frame of reference against which to measure your performance and this could cost you a lifetime of under-performance.  But this you know. 

Not all businesses are measured in the same way.  One reason why many business owners misunderstand the value of their business is because they compare it to another business which may be fundamentally quite different.   There are a number of different generally accepted valuation methods for small and medium businesses.  At a high level, the majority of businesses will be valued on their earnings, their cash flow, or their assets.   Different approaches will produce different results.  

The right answer is not the one that produces the best result but rather the one that is in line with the fundamentals of the business.  For example, a business that has a limited life with a defined income stream will be valued on the cash stream it will produce.  Whereas a mature business, like a wholesale business being valued as a going concern (that is, as an ongoing business), is likely to be valued on a multiple of its earnings.  A business, like a farm, is more likely to be valued on its tangible assets. 

Risk also influences business value.  The higher the risk, in most cases, the lower the relative value.  Risk impacts the ability of the business to maintain its earnings, the stability of the cash flow or the reliability of the assets.  Irrespective of the valuation method employed, variations in risk will influence value.  Risk is measured at an economic, industry, business and ownership level.  If you want to enhance business value, then look at areas where you can ‘de-risk’ the business without impacting on earnings.

Ideally, your business should generate and grow its earnings, its free cash flow, and its asset base. These factors, and a positive growth trend, are indicators of real value and a business that is likely to be growing in value.  The absence of these factors may bring into question the value that really exists.

If you are basing commercial or tax decisions on your business value, have a business valuation completed.  At least then you have a third party opinion of what your business is really worth.

The material and contents provided in this article are informative in nature only.  It is not intended to be advice and you should not act specifically on the basis of this information alone.  If expert assistance is required, please obtain professional advice

Contact Wayne at wmw@wmwright.com.au. All new clients or people looking to speak with an accounting professional are offered an initial consultation with the first hour at no charge. If you have some concerns and wish to take advantage of a confidential personal discussion simply call me 4721 7444 to arrange a meeting.

Bothered by automated followers and bots following me that in the main do nothing to enhance the twitter experience and certainly do not engage and interact I was intrigued when I saw the following tweet from

@ideaswoman

“Followers I want to read YOUR tweets, but you have to reply to the True Twit email sent 2 you! I do not follow automated followers”

As always in search of twitter tools to improve the twitter experience, I had a look at www.truetwit.com and on face value I liked what I saw. 

True twit- home page blurb

“Twitter spam is a drag. What if you could know for sure that your followers are truly human, and not some cyborg? TrueTwit is designed to help you:

• Verify people from robots
• Avoid Twitter spam
• Save time managing your followers”

Always game to try something new, I signed up for the True Twit Basic to experiment and see what would happen.

Shortly after singing up I received this direct message from one of my followers

“I don't do validations, that's how you lose your account “

Obviously I didn’t want to get my account suspended, so thought I’d better dig a little deeper.  Sent the following email to info@truetwit.com

“I’ve been advised that validating accounts leads to a twitter blocking or suspending your account – Is this true?”

Less than 24 hours later received the following response:

Hi:

Absolutely not. There have been a few far-fetched things said about TrueTwit, but that's a new one. We have no idea where this stuff comes from.

What happens is when a TrueTwit user's follower clicks on a validation link, they go to our validation web page where they are asked to complete a simple capcha. If they do, we know they are not a bot. That's it in a nutshell. 

Our application has been whitelisted with Twitter since last June, so you can be assured they are fully aware of what we do.

Hope that helps!!

TheTrueTwitTeam

So at this point my validation service remains on and if real people are put off by a friendly captcha – well there’s nothing I can do about that.

Perhaps they should read my blog post “What makes a REAL person on twitter”

Then this message from one of my favourite tweeple in Minnesota

ToyotaEquipment

@detaildevils Good day, have you seen the verification some twitters use? Thought of trying it, afraid it might turn real people off

Truetwit has only been active for a day and these are the results so far.

48 validations were sent to new followers

31 accounts have not been validated

17 people validated their accounts

22 accounts/bots have not been followed back

26 people were followed back

Yes I know the numbers don’t add up.  I still had to look at the twitter stream of those that did not validate – so that I could identify if I wanted to follow.

What does this mean to my twitter experience?

1.      Most people don’t want to validate their accounts?

2.      There are more bots out there than real people !#@

3.      That I’ll still need to look at the twitter stream of followers before I follow back

4.      The number of twitter streams that I’ll need to look at has been reduced (in one day from 48 to 34 – a small time saver but nonetheless a time saver)

So I’ll keep running truetwit for a couple of weeks and see what happens.

What do you think?

Unfortunately some people are not aware of this – not sure – read on…..

The main difference between http:// and HTTPS:// is about keeping you secure.

HTTP stands for HyperText Transport Protocol which is just a fancy way of saying it's a protocol (a language) for information to be passed back and forth between web servers and clients.

The important thing is the letter “S” which makes the difference between HTTP and HTTPS. The “S” stands for "Secure".

If you visit a website or webpage, and look at the address in the web browser, it will likely begin with the following: “http://”.  This means that the website is talking to your browser using the regular “unsecure” language. This makes it possible for someone to "eavesdrop" on your computer's conversation with the website.

If you fill out a form on the website, someone might see the information you send to that site. This is why you never ever enter your credit card number in an “http://” website!

But, if the web address begins with HTTPS:// and the server certificate is verified and trusted it means that your computer is talking to the website in a secure code and that no one can eavesdrop on.

The trust in HTTPS:// is based on major certificate authorities which come pre-installed in browser software (this is equivalent to saying "I trust certificate authority (eg VeriSign/Microsoft/etc.) to tell me who I should trust"). Therefore an HTTPS:// connection to a website can be trusted if and only if all of the following are true:

1.      The user trusts the certificate authority to vouch only for legitimate websites without misleading names.

2.      The website provides a valid certificate which means it was signed by a trusted authority. An invalid certificate shows a warning in most browsers.

3.      The certificate correctly identifies the website (eg visiting “https://Asite” and receiving a certificate for "Asite." and not "ABsite.").

You understand why this is so important, right? If a website ever asks you to enter your credit card information, I want you to automatically look to see if the web address begins with HTTPS://

If it doesn't, there's no way you're going to enter sensitive information like a credit card number.

Now you know – it’s that simple.

Why am I writing this? because I was asked to and as a result of a couple tweet comments during the day.

#TwitterTip: People wants to follow a REAL PERSON. Not a SALESMEN. @AskAaronLee

@Happysoul #TwitterTip That would be a really good tip to write - What makes a REAL PERSON on twitter.... @detaildevils

RT @AskAaronLee @detaildevils  Indeed, are you gonna write that =) What makes a REAL PERSON on twitterßI'll work on that

Background

I can only speak from my own fairly short experience in using social media. I joined twitter a mere three months ago after seeing the famous YouTube video “social media revolution” http://bit.ly/qCmT8 at a one day business workshop.

From this, my curiosity was piqued as I knew nothing about social media.  Sure I had a facebook page to connect with family and friends across the world; Blogs, didn’t know much about them, but knew they’d been around for ever….

I’d heard of twitter as a result of No.1 twitterer Ashton Kutcher mentioning of the Susan Boyle phenomenon.

Then along came @Lukerides, @seekowen @philgrueff @funmartin in the form of Social Media school http://socialmediaschool.com.au/ which I attended for four weeks and my love affair with twitter was born.

My reasons for using twitter

As a small business, I needed to find additional marketing strategies and social media eg facebook, blog, twitter, seemed a low monetary cost strategy to add to current marketing mix.

What really intrigued me was finding the right balance between tweeting about all things “occupational health and safety” which is the work I love and on which I can ramble eloquently for hours and hours and “showing” who I am and making connections with strangers.

By nature I am a shy person, but friends will tell you I can talk the “hind legs of a donkey”… when I get going.

How I’ve found REAL PEOPLE

So with this background, I started looking for people to follow. I am also a “researchaholic”: My twitter list of @detaildevils/health-safety has 155 professionals from all over the world. Ask a question and I’ll find an answer or at least give some pointers in the right direction.

Two monitors and one running tweetdeck with over 30 columns and I soon caught up with much of the phraseology, RTs, #hastags and associated periphery; not to mention the thousands of twitter tools and apps.

There are many twitter tips and blogs on the “do’s” and “don’ts”, twitter etiquette and so on and I am not an expert in twitter or social media.  There are many better qualified people on twitter than I am in this area.

So, what makes a REAL PERSON?

This of course is a subjective analysis, as the millions of people using twitter have almost as many different goals and reasons for using it in the first place.

This is my personal criterion for real people on twitter which can be summed up like this:

REAL PEOPLE do these things on twitter:

My list for finding and connecting with real people is

1. Answer questions: or at least try to help – bots ignore you.
2. Tweet a variety of stuff: tweets connected with a business are fine; but not to overwhelm the reader; tweets can be personal, but not intimate; make me smile and even make me cry. Provide knowledge and inform and keep others just for fun.
3. Don’t auto DM when I follow: I did this in the beginning and thanked the first 50 or so followers.  An impersonal auto DM is just a waste of time.  That’s just the way it is.  I don’t auto follow (although I did for a short while until the bots got the better of my stream, which I then culled).
4. Be genuine: A bio that reads like you’re the best thing since sliced bread is automatically treated with skepticism and I may give you a try but don’t bank on it.
5. Don’t automate all tweets: I now check all bios and streams before I follow back.  If the bio reads well and I can see twitter conversations happening on the first page, I’ll follow.  If all I can see is “bot” feeds, I may look at the second page, but not always.  Yes I automate some of my tweets, but they are in the minority.
6. Check the links: Many links fall over and the integrity of links is essential.
7. Don’t keep tweeting your website: I’ll have a couple of looks if the heading is interesting, but if your stream has nothing but links to your site, you’ve lost me.
8. Writer interesting blogs: I’ll definitely read blog posts if the topic is of interest and I will comment.
9. Retweet: Add something to the tweet: Not just “interesting”.  If it wasn’t interesting why are you retweeting it?
10. Read what you tweet: Enough said
11. ENGAGE and COMMUNICATE: Yes I know I shouted that one; but to me it’s the most important one.

I’ll elaborate on that.  Find conversations to add something of value.  To give an example:

Today was a slow day for me: I tweeted with:

@ToyotaEquipment in Minnesota and we swapped snow photos through twitpic and flickr.

@LanceScoular about success in 2010

@markdavidson about how wonderful Microsoft is not

If the post is long and I want to add something to retweet it, I’ll modify it, but keep its integrity.  Retweeted posts today from.@Happysoul: @timjennion: @DoRightAtWork @EGH_Program @wibw @iappleby @Northlandfox

And then there was this one:

See what happens when automating twitter oops RT @exclusivebrand: Too BUSY for Christmas shopping? http://bit.ly/5EwhAJ

And finally:

1. Connect, connect and connect some more. Listen to the conversations, jump in and add something. 

@ToyotaEquipment tweeted an acronym #hashtag in our snow conversation which of course I didn’t know and one not known in Australia, but a common one in Minnesota, USA #MNDOT, so ask the silly questions

My thanks to real people on twitter:

I have found genuinely real people to connect with through twitter.  I learn and I help people.  I have laughed and I have cried.  I have met new people. I have tried an amazing amount of twitter apps and tools which 3 months ago were totally alien to me.

So to the REAL PEOPLE on twitter – you know who you are, a very big thank you for welcoming me into the twitterverse.

PS:  Check my company blog “Why health & safety is a sexy topic” at http://bit.ly/3GBd9v to see why I love my work.

Broadwalk cafe, The Broadwalk, Penrith