Sleuthing Social Sites, Part 2 - Marketing

The Myth of the Luddite PI

We decided early in this firm's development to embrace the mythology of the Private Eye--Ferrari, fedora, and all. In that spirit, we craft a monthly post called [FIND] Vice. It's a celebration of our favorite fictional PIs, complete with a cocktail and cigar pairing, chosen with care by our favorite real-life mixologists and stogie men.

One aspect of the PI myth that we do not embrace, however, is that of the technophobe gumshoe.

To our minds, the [FIND] Vice feature merges past and present, to our benefit. By using a modern platform to pay homage to the vintage PI (and all the romance therein), we massage the myth, while living fully in the present. Basically, it's a way to connect, a sophisticated interaction with current and prospective customers, and it costs us nothing but a little time and creativity.

We're looking for a level of professionalism in our online presence-- a blend of casual, transparent and intelligent e-communications that both engage our audience and project (we hope) a certain familiarity with the wired world. A necessary attribute for the modern investigator, in our view.

Content Matters
Admittedly, mastering the art of social media marketing is more difficult than it sounds. It's not enough to just join the usual-suspect social-media granfalloons--e.g. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. It's about knowing how to use those sites to start a conversation, and keeping that conversation going using a combination of social media platforms, blogs, newsletters, QR codes, and (of course) a well-designed website that aggregates your company's online information portals.

Take a quick glance at the Twitter universe, and you'll see what we mean: millions of e-voices, few of them saying anything worthwhile or interesting. They're not conversing; they're advertising. "Visit my site!" "Buy my book!" It's hard to find any real content amidst the chaos of voices.

We struggle daily with the question of content, wondering if the information we're sending into the world is worthy of the ones and zeroes we're using up in its production. Transparency means looking inward as well as outward--it's easy to point to problems with someone else's website, blog, or marketing approach. But the very act of pushing ideas into the electronic ether changes the ideas themselves--because we get unexpected responses, the kind that demand that we re-think how we do things.

Are our blog posts too long? Maybe. We delve deep into subjects, reference economists, thinkers, literature. We believe our clients are smart, and they deserve as thorough a treatment of the subjects we cover as we ourselves seek in newspapers, magazines, and online journals.

Are we using Twitter, Facebook, and our monthly newsletter to best effect? It's a question we ask ourselves every day. Using posts and newsletter bursts, we've been successful in driving traffic to our blog so far. We sometimes tweet field updates when we're pulling surveillance. All these strategies seem to keep our clients interested and engaged, and our names bobbing at or near the surface of their attention.

But we have plenty to learn.

One thing we do know: it's useless to try to draw a straight line between social media and money. None of this makes a penny, at least not in a directly measurable way. We've excised "monetize" from our vocabulary, at least when it comes to our online presence. We charge for our work; the engagement is free.

Tell Your Story
It's a long-term way of thinking, and sometimes the waiting is frustrating. But it's become clear to us that building a sophisticated media presence using journalistic outlets, social media platforms, blogs, and a well-designed website does eventually drive engagement and interaction. All of these media are ways for us to tell customers our story, to let them know who we are and what we value.

In today's marketplace, it's not enough to be merely competent. Your clients aren't just purchasing information as a commodity; they're investing in you.

Tell them your story. Be calculating, but authentic. And most of all, be patient.

Sleuthing Social Sites

In September, The Economist ran an article titled "Untangling the Social Web." Pursuit Magazine recently published the first of a four-part series last month called "The Power of Social Media." PI Magazine regularly addresses this topic. Everyone--investigators, creative professionals, and entrepreneurs of all kinds--aims to harness this so-called power, but few of us know quite how.

Clearly, social media is a two-edged sword, one we professional investigators can, and must, learn to wield in both directions.

An Investigative Tool

I still find it amazing that some detectives-for-hire view technology with suspicion. A recent article in our local newspaper featured a retired DEA agent-cum-PI proudly asserting, "They call it the ol' gumshoe...no amount of technology is a substitute for knocking on doors and putting in the legwork."

Really? What about when someone doesn't want to willingly cough up the information you need? The "ol' gumshoe" isn't just about putting mileage on your feet. It's a metaphor for problem solving, which means availing yourself of the very best tools--from your mind, eyes, and ears, to electronic substitutes thereof.

Case Study - Choir Boy or Criminal?

Last year we were hired to compile a profile of a man involved in a high-stakes lawsuit. "He's a choir boy,"his family told investigators. "Always doin' good. Ain't never use drugs."

Problem: strolling the subject's neighborhood and knocking on doors was a pretty unlikely way to find out any real information about him. We would've been spotted immediately as outsiders in the community and viewed with extreme suspicion. But in the virtual neighborhood of social media, it's pretty easy to assume a believable disguise and join in the conversation.

As the subject's new online acquaintance,  a whole world opened to us. Photos and comments about the subject painted a completely different picture of his personality and habits. The mythological choir boy image didn't stand up well against a photograph of the youth proudly puffing a blunt whilst flashing a gangster pose. Using connections linked to his page, we also identified a vast list of potential witnesses, uncovered other questionable activities, and unearthed at least three other social media sites portraying the young fellow's extralegal antics.

Case Study - Globetrotting Tweeter

A client hired us to locate a person who'd left the scene of a car accident. The young woman proved elusive and failed to return numerous phone calls from an attorney. The sheriff's office had given up after trying three times to serve subpoenas to her last known address.

We surmised that the demographic in question (women, mid-twenties) can scarcely evacuate their bowels these days without documenting said activities on Facebook and Twitter. It didn't take much techno-gumshoe poking around to discover her Facebook page and Twitter feed. Conveniently, the young lady enjoyed tweeting incessantly on the subject of her location and future travel plans. Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, L.A. (including her actual street address! She checked in on FourSquare.) I forwarded her Twitter handle to the client, and he had her served in California two days later...on the first try.

Observations

A typical skip trace might run a search via IRB and Tracers Info. The address would've turned up nothing except for the house her father maintained while serving five for insurance fraud. The sheriff's office didn't find her there, and neither would a social-media-phobic investigator. Our tweeting sweetheart hadn't been there in years.

Case Study - FCPA Due Diligence

One case promised to take us to exotic, sunny locales to perform clandestine shenanigans for fun and profit. Unfortunately, we were able to pull together enough information using databases, law enforcement sources, and a healthy dose of Facebook revelations to convince our client not to do business with this subject. If it weren't for social media, we'd have a lot more stamps in our passports right now, and our client would be out several grand in travel expenses.

Conclusions

I could go on and on, but you get the point. I understand that canvassing and in-person interviews are valuable tools. But to exclude new and innovative methods of analysis isn't just short sighted, it borders on crazy. New technology isn't an excuse to avoid old-school detective work. It's an opportunity to use the ol' gumshoe skills virtually, in a global neighborhood. It allows an investigator's eyes and ears to blanket the world.

Coming Soon, check out Part Two: Marketing in a Social Media Age

Infidelity in the Digital Age

Can social media break up a marriage? asks NPR in a recent feature on All Things Considered.

Not exactly. But sites like Facebook open a world of possibilities for connecting with people in a low-risk and socially acceptable way--people like old flames or co-workers whom you might not consider it appropriate to call at home or meet in person, especially if you, and they, are attached.

There's a casualness and anonymity to email, texting, and Facebook that make it easier to cross lines that felt a little more solid before communications went digital. "In fact," reporter Jenifer Ludden points out, "...a partner can easily carry on an affair in the same house, even the same room."

People often behave more boldly in the digital shadows, where rejection, as simple as hitting an "ignore" button or just failing to reply to a text, feels less threatening than an in-person blow-off. That's why it's so easy to launch the kind of online intimacy that can (as Ludden posits) quickly spiral into an affair. And relationships that begin online can often escalate a lot faster than the more traditional variety.

"When you don't have nonverbal communication, the likelihood of being able to disclose at a deeper level is greater, because there's less inhibition," says Bob Rosenwein of Lehigh University. "So it's going to feel like a more intimate relationship."

Extramarital Facebook flirting and romance have apparently become common enough that a New Jersey pastor has cautioned his church community to give up Facebook. JJ Sutherland's NPR News blog quotes Reverend Cedric Miller as saying he's seen a huge rise in couples among his flock who say Facebook is a main source of their marital problems. "The temptation is just too great," he says.

Sutherland also links to this Telegraph article, in which UK divorce lawyers claim that 20% of their clients cite Facebook as a reason for their divorce, often because a spouse has discovered evidence of sexual flirtation on a partner's Facebook site.

The rather sad upside of this for private investigators and family attorneys is that today's straying spouses often leave a digital fingerprint. The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (again, thanks JJ Sutherland for this) reports that 81% of divorce lawyers say they've seen an increase in the number of cases using social media evidence.

We at [FIND] are seeing more of this kind of thing as well--affairs in which the main evidence is a log of text messages or Facebook posts of spouses photographed with their suspected illicit paramours, for all the world to see.

Frankly, you'd think folks would be a little smarter. But it seems that, sometimes, people may begin a digital affair in a way that feels almost innocent. It might even start with a simple, "Whatcha doin'?" text to an attractive casual acquaintance. But when the intimate contact is returned in kind, it can quickly become addictive. The next thing you know, you're stashing the phone under your pillow to intercept 2am texts from someone you barely knew 3 weeks ago.

Here's my personal philosophy on the matter: if it feels wrong, it probably is. I try not to say, type, or text anything I wouldn't be proud for my favorite guy to hear or read. That seems to work pretty darned well for us. But if you're determined to cheat, help a PI out: Facebook-flirt and "sext" as much as you please. We also appreciate any photographic evidence you can provide.  
   -KDG