While we are busy racking up followers, friends or connections, getting a re-tweet or comment here or there, how much do we analyse the effectiveness of our social media output?

Probably for many it is based on just that: amassing a large number of followers, with some nods towards interaction.  How else can you do it?

One free tool available on the Internet is Klout.

Simple and easy to sign-up with and use, it assesses the power of an individuals or company’s social media through algorithms that give feedback on three key elements:

How many people you influence (True Reach)

How much you influence them (Amplification)

How influential they are (Network Score)

If we take Twitter (there are other social media that can be analysed such as LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook) I have a Klout score of 37.88 out of a possible 100, up from 34.65 a few days ago.

My true reach is 286 (rather than the nearly 800 followers I have) although I am not sure if the lists I am noted on are included, there are about 50 and range from one follower to several hundred.  It is an important point as I have more followers on lists than the almost 800 cited.

Network influence is 41 and and amplification stands at 14.

I am also influential about “lawyers, journalism and Manchester.”

I thought I saw “Alan Carr” the other day in that list, but  it must have been my imagination.

It is quite fluid system, scores can go up and down.  When I looked at “I Love Manchester’s” scores, as a test, it went up straight after the riots when many wanted to show support for the city – so first test passed.

With a claim of over 85 million Twitter accounts assessed, you are free to compare scores, quite impressive as the majority of accounts are not signed-up to Klout.

I will mention two more features.

The first is a grid, reminiscent of a marketing or business matrix.  This is an account’s “Klout style,” mine is between “casual and listening” and “focused and consistent.”  As with the other indicators comparisons with friends or rivals accounts can be made.

It adds: “You actively engage in the social web, constantly trying out new ways to interact and network. You’re exploring the ecosystem and making it work for you. Your level of activity and engagement shows that you “get it,” we predict you’ll be moving up.”

I am getting falshbacks to school reports.

The other is “Klout perks.”  If you are an influential social media operative you can try or be given gifts,  with the aim of promoting the brand – being influential on journalists and lawyers might not be helpful in this regard, but Manchester might be.

So for any PR that has to justify social media or simply for interested parties who want the gratification that their hours of tweeting are changing the world, it is a fun, easy and perhaps a useful tool.

Organised by Brian Everall the editor at community portal newspaper Salford Online, the expo aims to showcase the best of the business community in the city.

The event, which is I believe an inaugural one, will aim to tell local businesses about the companies on their doorstep that they might have overlooked as suppliers or clients.  With over 8,000 business in Salford the event should gain a good stream of visitors.

There are still stands left for those who are interested in exhibiting, with demand strong.  I believe well over 50 stands have been taken – I am sure Brain and his team can verify the up to date numbers.

For more information call: 0161 789 5377 or e-mail: info@salfordbusinessexpo.co.uk

So I will not have to sell the concept here to seasoned networkers, only the group.  If you have never networked, why not give it a try?

Well, we are looking for new members for our breakfast networking group Manchester Business Breakfast Club.

We meet every Friday at 7am at our rather nice venue Manchester Tennis & Racquets Club Blackfriars Road Salford M3 7AQ.

Before those that are not early risers turn off I will outline why our group is worth considering.

Firstly we have over 30 members, many of whom are very well connected.  We are welcoming and generous in helping other members; we do not operate in cliques or expect you to be a member for months before business is referred.

The atmosphere of the group is light hearted, fun and irreverent although it aims to generate new business.

As an added bonus we have no membership fees, just a small charge for breakfast.  Any profits the group makes goes back into social gatherings.

MBBC allows only one member from any profession.  So we have only one printer for instance.

However, within a profession there can be a number of disciplines where there is little or no conflict of interest.

So we have a lawyer, Zatmans, and also a family lawyer from Howards Solicitors, as Zatmans does not offer that service.  We also have a Wills writer and a probate genealogist – professions that can work alongside or with legal practices.  We also have outsourced HR that covers employment law.

So who are we looking for?

Generous individuals who are happy to give referrals, possibly offer advice and might use other members’ services, if they feel confident and trust the recipient.  It is about know, like and trust.  In return, new members can expect to receive the same help.

Despite many professions being accounted for we still have the following openings:

• Architect
• Art dealers & auctioners
• Burglar alarms/ security systems
• Business travel/ travel Agent
• Care leasing & contract hire
• Commercial gas & electric
• Courier services
• Debt management
• Interior design
• Document storage/ management
• Engineering and manufacturing
• Estate agents/ letting agents
• Executive car hire

• Exhibition companies
• Florist
• Franchise consultants
• Hotels/ venues
• Recruitment
• Recycling
• Restaurant
• Secretarial/ Virtual PA
• Sports club – we have had Wigan FC as members in the past and Manchester United came as visitors
• Surveyor

• Wholesalers
• Wine merchants

If you don’t see your profession and are interested in joining please ask, as it might be free.

If you are in the above professions please contact Graham Heap on 07725 993 400 ggheap@yahoo.co.uk

If you come you will be welcomed and will be allowed to come for free for two visits, including a hearty breakfast, before deciding if it is for you.  So why not try and find out if we can help grow your business?

We all like to be liked, and in business we like to be generally viewed as being well-connected, and what better way of doing that than having vast numbers of connections on LinkedIn?

Yet, LinkedIn is surely about relationships, not just numbers.

The real strength of LinkedIn is that you can ask your connections’ connections for introductions – an immensely powerful tool for generating new business or sourcing suppliers or associates.

Yes you can use LinkedIn to broadcast news, but there is also Twitter and e-mails and newsletters and direct marketing and press releases and websites and blogs – better options than collecting names on LinkedIn to target.

The discussions, if you have time, can be useful – I have given referrals and gained pitching opportunities through such groups.  I am not saying LinkedIn is not multi-purpose, but to link up without any connection misses the point.

So if someone is allowed to enter into your LinkedIn realm, would you be happy to make an introduction or ask for one from somone you don’t know, like and trust, with perhaps, a valuable and highly regarded contact or friend?

Yet I continue to get the standard,  “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” from people I have never met, who have sometimes the most passing things in common.

One contact – who somehow connected with me – even asked for a testimonial even though I had never done business with him nor indeed recall meeting him!

You might like to add me to your professional network, but at least tell me why.  If you can’t I am happy for you to follow me on Twitter no questions asked.

For Artisan this is the third winner in a row it has worked with to gain recognition at the Big Chips.

In 2010 it was 11 Out Of 10 with Pure Gym again for “Best E-Business Project” and the year before “Best Green Chip Award” for server hosting company Melbourne.

If you jump a year to 2007, it was Jamie Clouting at PushOn, for “Best Rising Star.”

The awards, the biggest outside the capital, attract well over 250 entries – the numbers have been going up significantly in recent years and this year I believe the number was nearer to 300 agencies, companies and public organisations submitting their work for examination.

For certain categories, such as “Best Use of Search” and “Best E-Business Project” the competition is especially intense.

So to have specifically targeted key awards – one each year for the past three years – and to have won all three is quite some achievement.

The value to clients is hard to calculate in terms of pounds and pence, but if you weigh up using the accolade of being a winner of a well-regarded industry award on an agency or company’s literature (including website), social media, for PR and in pitches to lend greater credibility, then its value must be well above the time and money invested, even by the meanest of calculations.

In some ways it is surprising that the Syrian uprising is being covered to the extent it is in the UK broadcast media.

Yes, the events in Syria are marking a radical shift in thinking and politics in the Arab world.  Yet with so little substantiated news it is surely very hard for this story to dominate news agendas as it should.

There have been no iconic images such as the one of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young women who lost her life protesting against the almost certainly fraudulent Iranian elections results two yeas ago.

And with next to no verifiable footage taken within Syria, independently minded journalists banned by the Assad regime have to rely on the accounts of refugees streaming across international borders.

In Turkey, President Erdogan, who has been building up strong economic and political ties with Assad’s regime has offered refugees from the town of Jisr al-Shughour – which has been the target of a concerted military assault – protection on the understanding they do not talk about their experiences to journalists keen to update reports.

So when the established media cannot report there is a vacuum.

It is left up to citizen journalists such as Amina Abdallah Arraf al-Omari, a 25-year-old gay woman in Damascus to tell the world what is going on.

Amina, within a few short months, was able to give an insight that no journalists could.

The blog was attracting hundreds of thousands of hits, and no doubt was used as a source by many reporters.

Then Amina was abducted, but by whom?  No one was sure although one of the many branches of the Syrian secret police or security services must have been involved – an online campaign to free her resulted.

However, it has been unmasked as a hoax, a complete fraud.

It was the work of a US student residing in Edinburgh, Tom MacMaster and possibly his partner Britta Froelicher (although MacMaster now claims it is his work alone).

Even the pictures of Amina were stolen from the Facebook page of a Croatian girl living in London who had no connection to the material being used on the blog.

MacMaster had the gall to explain his deception:  “While the narrative voice may have been fictional, the facts on this blog are true and not misleading as to the situation on the ground. I do not believe that I have harmed anyone – I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.”

There are many issues raised by such behaviour but I want to concentrate on just one:  The reliance of news sources where there is no legal or editorial safeguards to ensure a commitment to follow standards of integrity and professionalism.

Of course no news outlet is free of bias, but the issue with Citizenship Journalism is that those basic standards we expect from a news source might be there or not, through design or lack of it.

This is one reason why established media outlets such as national newspapers do not have to feel threatened when there seems to be others with greater access, speed or credentials disseminating news.

So I will not have to sell the concept here to seasoned networkers, only the group.  If you have never networked, why not give it a try?

Well, we are looking for new members for our breakfast networking group Manchester Business Breakfast Club.

We are having an open day on Friday1st July  at 7am at our rather nice venue Manchester Tennis & Racquets Club Blackfriars Road Salford M3 7AQ.

Before those that are not early risers turn off I will outline why our group is worth considering.

Firstly we have over 30 members, many of whom are very well connected.  We are welcoming and generous in helping other members; we do not operate in cliques or expect you to be a member for months before business is referred.

The atmosphere of the group is light hearted, fun and irreverent although it aims to generate new business.

As an added bonus we have no membership fees, just a small charge for breakfast.  Any profits the group makes goes back into social gatherings.

MBBC allows only one member from any profession.  So we have only one printer for instance.

However, within a profession there can be a number of disciplines where there is little or no conflict of interest.

So we have a lawyer, Zatmans, and also a family lawyer from Howards Solicitors, as Zatmans does not offer that service.  We also have a Wills writer and a probate genealogist – professions that can work alongside or with legal practices.  In the past we have had outsourced HR and commercial litigation agents (similar to private investigators) as members.

So who are we looking for?

Generous individuals who are happy to give referrals, possibly offer advice and might use other members’ services, if they feel confident and trust the recipient.  It is about know, like and trust.  In return, new members can expect to receive the same help.

Despite many professions being accounted for we still have the following openings:

• Architect
• Art dealers & auctioners
• Burglar alarms/ security systems
• Business travel/ travel Agent
• Care leasing & contract hire
• Commercial gas & electric
• Courier services
• Debt management
• Hotel
• Interior design
• Document storage/ management
• Engineering and manufacturing
• Estate agents/ letting agents
• Executive car hire

• Exhibition companies
• Florist
• Franchise consultants
• Hotels/ venues
• HR Consultants
• Recruitment
• Recycling
• Restaurant
• Secretarial/ Virtual PA
• Sports club – we have had Wigan FC as members in the past and Manchester United came as visitors
• Surveyor

• Telemarketing
• Training Services
• Wholesalers
• Wine merchants

If you don’t see your profession and are interested in joining please ask, as it might be free.

If you are in the following professions please contact Graham Heap on 07725 993 400 ggheap@yahoo.co.uk

If you come you will be welcomed and will be allowed to come for free for two visits, including a hearty breakfast, before deciding if it is for you.  So why not try and find out if we can help grow your business?

There is the temptation for lawyers to promote themselves through cases.  The issue of representing the client and self-promotion is a fine balancing act.

Then there is Twitter – is this leading to the mis-reporting of cases?  Are cases regularly reported in an unbalanced way?  The lines are blurred indeed.

The BBC’s Joshua Rozenberg discusses the issues of how the media is impacting the legal codes lawyers abide by in his regular slot: Law In Action.   Click here to listen.

Specialist wealth preservation legal practice Lane-Smith & Shindler is urging those considering a move to Switzerland for tax reasons to make arrangements with Swiss authorities promptly as major changes loom.

The practice, which has an associated office in Zurich, understands that the proposed new changes to the Swiss Lump Sum tax will end up costing new residents in some Cantons between 50-100% more.  Returning Swiss nationals, who had qualified after ten years outside Switzerland, will not be able to do so under the new arrangements.

The changes include a higher rate of calculation for the tax and doubling the minimum income to qualify to CHF 400,000.  Additionally the proposals call for Cantons to be obliged to levy income and wealth taxes to a minimum level.

The Swiss Lump Sum tax, known as (Pauschalreglung in German and Imposition Forfaitaire in French) allows those seeking Swiss residence for the first time to pay a relatively generous single lump sum instead of taxing worldwide assets and income.

The arrangement is only open to those who agree not take any gainful employment or maintain businesses under which they receive income in Switzerland.

Tim Urquhart of the Swiss office associated with Lane-Smith & Shindler said: “The changes are at proposal stage.  No one can say with absolute accuracy when the changes will be introduced, but it could be as early as summer 2011.  It might seem a long-time away but in order to take advantage of the 5 year period of transition allowed between the old and the proposed new provisions but it is imperative to start negotiations with the authorities sooner rather than later.”

At the end of the transition period of 5 years, all existing lump-sum arrangements (under the more generous structure) will be brought up to the new standards.

Paul Davies a partner at Lane-Smith and Shindler adds: “Switzerland is an attractive tax option for wealthy individuals and will remain so despite the changes.  Even though those wishing to take advantage of this generous tax scheme should do so quickly, what is even more important is to select the right Canton to reside in and pay tax.”

“The differences in tax regimes between the 26 Cantons can be surprisingly marked to say the least, with some not levying wealth or capital gains taxes.”

THE newly appointed head of family law at  Howards Solicitors, Neil Grunfeld, has achieved accredited status with Resolution, the specialist family law organisation.

Grunfeld, who recently took up his role at Manchester based legal practice Howards, will use the accreditation to push the firm’s family law department credentials as private client rather than Legal Aid providers.

Resolution specialists must pass rigorous assessments to demonstrate the highest levels of knowledge and practical application of family law best practice.  The organisation works for a constructive, non-confrontational approach to family law matters, and campaigns for improvements to the family justice system.

Howards will continue to deliver Legal Aid funded cases for specialisms such as motoring and criminal law, for which it holds a coveted Criminal Legal Aid Contract.

Grunfeld comments: “The combination of Legal Aid proposals for family law and the determination to deliver high quality service has meant that we had to seriously reconsider our position.”

Oliver Gardner managing partner at Howards Solicitors comments: “Family law is highly competitive, but Neil’s achievement in passing Resolution’s rigorous and selective tests will mark him out as possessing an extra dimension of expertise.  It will give his department and the practice a competitive advantage.”

“Neil’s association with Resolution reflects our firm’s outlook in providing services by highly skilled professionals with a personal interest in the well–being of our clients.”