eChatter

Social Media For Jury Selection

During the jury selection process, there’s not a lot of time to determine which potential jurors would be best for your upcoming trial. Some states allow firms to receive a list of potential jurors prior to voir dire – wphen this happens, using social media research can truly prepare lawyers for the process and give them insight to make the most of their time in evaluating potential jurors.

Social media research is invaluable in this respect; by utilizing a social monitoring service, lawyers can easily look to social media conversations to learn more about a potential juror’s prejudices, connections, and knowledge of the trial details. As people have become more inclined to share their thoughts on social sites, this unstructured public data has become useful for more than simply generalized research.

Of course, any social media monitoring program can only capture public facing content; that is, if a user’s Facebook page is only set to show content to “friends”, then what they post will not be able to be collected. However, when people participate in open message boards and forums, respond to blog posts, or have their privacy settings to “public” then gaining insight into their social activities can be effective.

How is this done? A strong social media monitoring program uses a suite of software platforms to provide the most thorough, comprehensive social scan possible. When provided with basic information about potential jurors, social media monitoring scans are set and the following data is collected:

1. A listing of all public facing social sites a potential juror owns

2. A collection of content posted in a public facing social setting over a two-year period; in some cases, accounts that were public and deleted can be picked up when social monitoring tools provide archiving capabilities

3. Alert notification when items are found that may indicate a specific prejudice, connection to a defendant, law enforcement, or plaintiff in the case

Of course, not everyone has a social media footprint, and many are careful with their privacy settings. There are also times in which a person simply won’t have any social content readily available. However, when something significant is uncovered, the importance of using social media data as part of the jury selection process becomes clear.

Social Monitoring Just Got Better

Imagine planning a trade show or event – after careful planning and months in the making, the time has come and the event has started. How will you know what attendees think? Are there any issues happening during the event? When will you learn about these issues, if at all?

As they say, there’s no better time than the present.

So how can you find out what event attendees are thinking, what they like and dislike, what issues they are experiencing, and what they are saying to others? It’s no surprise that people are continuously posting to their social sites, often times while they are in the moment of experience.

Meet Social Media Monitoring 2.0 – or as we call it, real time social media monitoring.

Social media technology changes on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. This recent development is a milestone in social media monitoring. Geofencing capabilities now allow for real-time monitoring of conversations and social sharing happening around an event, store, or restaurant.

Why is this great news?

For many reasons! With the newest development in social media monitoring, companies can now:

1. Get real time sentiment of consumers attending an event, production, or promotional activity so you can learn more about how it is perceived, what people like and what they don’t like.

2. Identify those customers who are having a difficult experience, and have the capability to reach out to them almost instantaneously, to resolve issues as they happen.

3. Capture social conversations surrounding your company, event, or promotion even if people do not specifically mention it by name and/or hash tag.

As a social media monitoring firm, we keep up on the latest trends and technologies so you don’t have to. We strive to employ the “best of the best” when it comes to monitoring tools in order to provide the most robust, rich social data possible to give you actionable data.

Social Media Conduct of Your Employees

Does your company have a social media policy in place yet? If not you may want to consider creating one sooner rather than later. More and more employees are losing their jobs, getting reprimanded for their public social media posts. So where do you start?

A great article from Entrepreneur online discusses “Writing Social Media Guidelines” makes some excellent suggestions and begins with a legal point of view. Some highlights include:

Freedom of speech: Be aware of the National Labor Relations Act’s rules protecting employees’ freedom-of-speech rights. The act protects the rights of all employees (not just those in unions) to enjoy freedom of speech in relation to collective bargaining or other discussions of mutual aid.

Do your research according to your state.

Check out how other companies in your industry handles social media among employees. Often that is a good place to start.

Council your employees to use common sense. While it is a great thing for an employee to show loyalty to their company by posting a picture from a trade show, office party or staff meeting caution needs to be exercised. Many companies monitor their own social media and also that of their competitors. An innocent post could give your competition some information you would rather they not know.

Does your company have a social media policy in place? Do you need one? While most policies are more of a guideline it is important for ALL businesses to have something in writing for their employees to reference. Join the discussion by leaving your comments and learn from others!