What is a good LinkedIn update?

As traditional marketing becomes less effective I have decided to embrace Inbound Marketing.

Part of Inbound Marketing is Sackmans using Social Media like LinkedIn more actively.

Questions on my mind include:

• How many updates a day should I post?
• What makes a good status update?

I have done some research and thought I’d share my thoughts just in case others find it useful.

My take is that a maximum of two updates a day in the accepted LinkedIn etiquette and here is what I will be posting:

Project updates
I work on some interesting issues and these may provide insights to others.

Content links
I am committed to creating useful content for business owners.

Examples are:

• Blog posts like the Rasing Finance Series
• Permission Based Marketing training
• Improving the Numbers Website
• Links to useful articles on other Websites
• Announcements of events

I can post that I am working on some new content so people know what is coming.

And, when the content goes live I will do another update and do a link to it.

Good news
I will share my good news via LinkedIn.

This can include:

• News about sackmans
• Client successes
• Sackmans winning a new client
• Getting referrals and testimonials

Giving updates
I have signed up with B1G1 a company that enables me to give to worthy causes as part of my day-to-day work.

My commitment is that as my business benefits other people do.

For example, anoyone that connects to me on LinkedIn will trigger me to give clean water for a day to a someone in Etheopia.

Warnings
I do a lot of reading and research and sometimes come across information that business owners may not be aware of.

What I will not post
This is what I will not do:

• Tell you personal things
• Continually promote myself

I hope you found this post useful and remember, connect to me on LinkedIn click here.

Small things make a big difference

I’ve always believed two things:

• Individuals can make a make a big difference by doing small things
• Businesses and chartities can help each other

Charitable giving can benefit a business by raising the brand’s profile and gives customers another reason to do business with you.

A charity needs money and businesses create this every year.

This has led me to join B1G1, an initiative designed to enable micro charitable giving by businesses.

B1G1 makes your business giving effective and connecting and creates a world full of giving by giving your business the power to change lives.

B1G1 was founded in 2007 by a small group of people who believed that if giving was made simple, easy and truly impactful, every business would want to give back to make a difference.

It took several long years to figure out how to make it possible — how to make it scalable, transparent, truly simple yet effective and so on.

Right now B1G1 works with over 850 businesses supporting more than 600 projects in 30+ countries around the globe.

I want to align my business goals with helping others and make it automatic.

So, I will be giving everytime my business benefits.

You can help me by telling people about Sackmans. If I win a client by your referral I will pay to feed a child for a year at a slum School in India for a year. But, if you just subscribe to my newsletter I will provide clean water for one person for a day in Ethiopia.

If you are interested in your business giving with B1G1 click here and if you contact them please mention Sackman Accountants.

£45m cyber tax attack

I’ve been warning clients for years about the dangers of a tax investigation and developed a service to protect and support clients.

Many think that the whole point of the Self Assessment tax system (which was introduced in 1997) is to focus more resources on tax investigations. It is common knowledge that the taxman sometimes spys on businesses before it attacks them.

In the old days Tax Inspectors counted the number of people visiting a business and used this information to check the sales. If the bookkeeping didn’t show all the sales for that day then the taxman would argue that this was the case for everyday. The problem is that when the taxman spots a mistake you are on the back foot.

Today the taxman has access to lots of information and they are now spying on people using technology.  HMRC’s crawler technology is based upon an elaborate (almost militarised) £45m computer system designed by leading defence contractor BAE Systems. The software is supposed to work by creating ‘spidergrams’ of people’s social media and email habits, then analysing their shapes to determine likelihood of offences.

If you want to make sure you are covered, call me about our Tax Investigation Service.