social media monitoring Archives

There is a Rumor Going Around…

In any work environment there is bound to be a whole bunch of dynamics around the office. Too many type A’s in the office could be quite exhausting for example. It takes skill to navigate it all with the help of a good HR department. This is however, very understandable and common to most people.

But what happens when things turn ugly at work? What if someone has it in for a person or even a group of people? Workplace conflict is a very real issue and one that should not be taken lightly. With the mental health issues we currently have in our country, employees should be trained in what to look for and have a safe place in which they can voice their concerns. In fact, many work places are taking a proactive approach by conducting workshops on this topic to teach employees what is acceptable and what isn’t.

Workplace Policy

Developing a workplace policy like the one below is helpful and can be especially important should any legal issues come up.

Under federal law and Department of Labor (DOL) policy, harassment by DOL employees of DOL employees based on race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity and pregnancy), national origin, age, disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, or parental status is prohibited. The Department of Labor does not permit harassing conduct by anyone in the workplace, including contractors.
Taken from the DOL website

Posting it in the lunch room or in a public area would be a great first step. But it does take much more effort on the part of management and prevention is key. Years ago, when a company had a problem within their organization, it pretty much stayed there. Not true anymore, thanks to social media.

Social Media’s Role

What is social media’s role in all of this? Does an employer have the right to monitor employees social media? Can it be cause for dismissal? More and more the answer is yes because it can be a red flag alert that will stop a publicity nightmare down the road.

Where there is smoke there is fire. Social media can be a red flag to other things that may be happening within a department. This was true of a Seattle Officer who showed signs of of violent tendencies on and off social media.

The Seattle Officer lost his job over a collection of social media posts. The post became public by placing a blurb about it on the Office of Police Accountability’s website. The officer included some pretty rough comments about illegal immigration, with an emphasis on endorsing violence. The department issued this statement:

“The department’s ability to fulfill its public safety duties depends on communities believing that officers will treat them equally and with dignity, regardless of their immigration status,” Best concluded. “Your comments suggest that you will not do so. They could have substantial negative consequences to the relationship between members of the Department and those that we serve and showed exceeding poor judgment.”

Additionally, the officer was suspended for escalating another incident to the point where a fellow officer feared for their safety.

As an employee, would you feel more safe knowing your employer was being proactive? When does safety in the workplace trump privacy? Please share your thoughts…

Secrets About Social Media Monitoring That Nobody Will Tell You.

By now most people have heard of social media monitoring in one form or another. Social media monitoring is something that companies do in order to maintain a good online presence and to monitor their online reputation. Restaurants, retail stores, doctors, lawyers and more are smart to hire a company to conduct this ongoing research on their behalf. It can reveal a lot about the company and its competitors.

In the investigation world, social media monitoring can take on an entirely new dimension. If you advertise that you conduct social media investigations, this added service could be a great new source of revenue for your company. A recent case study provides a good example of what we are talking about.

An investigator’s client (who is an attorney) was interested in locating an individual involved in a case she was working on. She wanted the individual’s social media watched for updates, as he was not able to be found using traditional surveillance methods. The investigator needed social media monitoring in order to watch for location clues in as close to real time as possible.

In the social media/ online world, things can change in a second. What is sometimes here today, will be gone tomorrow. That is where monitoring comes in. When an investigator uses social media monitoring, they are getting updates in real time. This type of online surveillance can be handy as it allows the investigator to get a clear picture and an update day to day on the whereabouts of his poi. This allows an investigator to act “in the moment” to better target resources to serve the person as needed, or to even find a missing person.

While conducting social media monitoring for this investigator we were able to locate the person. Within their instagram stories, we could see that he was on vacation and wanted to share his experiences. Looking at the background of an image can reveal a lot. We could see that he was visiting a very popular tourist destination. With this added information, it allowed the investigator to target more effectively. This may not be true in every case as some people don’t use social media at all. However, they are in the minority.

So next time you think about social media investigation ask yourself this question:

Would it be of value to my client to conduct social media monitoring for this case?
Some examples include:

Jury monitoring before, during and after a high profile case
Locating a missing person
Threat monitoring

The bottom line to all of this is to begin with the purpose & be certain it is well justified and that you are monitoring open source data only. When needed, this is an additional step in your investigation that may save time and money in the long run. People love to share their experiences online and this will never change. Learn ways to use it to your advantage.

Stolen Images & Identities in Social Media & Online

There should be a new reality TV show called, “People Post the Darndest Things.” I think most people would be shocked to see what Social Media Investigators see on a daily basis. It has helped thousands of fake workman’s comp cases because people will post things like jumping off a diving board after filing a claim for an injured back. Remember the guy who “faked” falling in the office cafeteria and it was caught on video?

Images online are a Social Media Investigator’s best friend because once identified as the correct person of interest, it can lead you to much more information and data online. Recently, one such image was discovered by one of our OSINT specialists. While searching online, she discovered the following picture. Something about the image just didn’t look right. This was true given the fact that she had other photos to compare it with.

Using one of our software platforms we were able to search the web for this exact image. We didn’t find one exactly like this, however we did find one that we realized was the original.

Fake Image — Photoshopped image using mirroring feature.

By conducting a reverse image search we found the original image online. This is the image of actress Aubrey Plaza.

Many celebrities deal with this every day and it is a contributing factor in fake news online and in social media.

In Digital Trends‘ article, “Can you spot a Photoshopped picture? Here are 9 ways to identify a fake photo“, Author Hillary K. Grigonis, shares how to become better at spotting a fake.

Three Tips We Love:

Look for bad edges: Cropping around the edges of an object is tough to do. Zoom in on the photo in question and look at the edges of the objects. Overly sharp edges or jagged edges are a telltale sign that the object was simply pasted in over the original photo.

Be wary of poor quality: A low-resolution image file can help hide the signs of a faked photo. It’s difficult to see if the edges of the flag in that Seahawks photo blend because the entire image is pixelated, a good warning sign that something’s not quite right. With the widespread availability of high-speed internet today, it’s rare that an image would be uploaded at such a low resolution.

Look at the metadata: Digital cameras embed “invisible” data inside the image file. While you can’t see the information in the image, accessing it is easy using a photo editor or even free online software.

Are your photos safe online?

For the most part, yes. However, there is a new undercurrent trend online that is growing with social media image sharing platforms like Instagram. Conducting a Google Reverse Image is one way to check to be sure photos are not being used without your approval.

How to Protect your Company’s  Online Reputation

Customers are talking about your brand. Through avenues such as social media, online review sites, blog comments, and community forums, your brand has made an impression…and it’s up to you whether that impression is a positive or negative one.

Because of the plethora of social media choices in play, it can be very difficult to monitor the conversations and truly know what’s being said about your brand every minute of the day. Because of this, more companies are investing in online reputation management (ORM).

ORM is the act of monitoring and engaging in activities to understand and improve the overall public impression a company has online. In other words, it’s public relations for the internet.

It’s best to stay abreast of what’s being said about your brand, otherwise you will be playing a game of clean up. When it comes to your business’s online reputation, the “fix it later” approach can result in disaster. Hersh Davis-Nitzberg, founder and CEO of crisis management firm Reputation Control Inc., says that entrepreneurs need to be proactive about managing their online reputation before irreversible damage is done. Here are four steps he recommends you take to protect and improve your business.

1) Be Present…Especially where your Customers are

The number one danger to ORM is when companies are not present where their customers are interacting. Social media is only one avenue where your customers are talking about you online. Your customers are not only tweeting or posting on Instagram about you, but they are also gaining support praising or pummeling you on community forums, or the comment section of review sites.

Unfortunately, on most of these forums, the customer inquiries, concerns, or complaints go unseen and unanswered by a representative of the business. Instead, the forums become support groups for customers as other users share similar questions or poor experiences that they have encountered with in your brand. You definitely do not want this to become a free-for-all bashing your brand.

2) Responding to Negative Content

In most cases, online forums, communities, or review sites allow companies to respond to feedback. When your company or brand receives negative feedback, ideally you should respond as an affirmation. Try not to become defensive or downplay the customer’s experience. The first step is to apologize for the experience and take the conversation offline.

Many review sites and service communities rank high on search engine optimization (SEO). If a company is mentioned negatively on these sites, the best plan of action is to give a short response recognizing the issue, apologizing, then taking the conversation offline. Invite the user to send a direct message or an email. If a company chooses to go back and forth with a consumer, each time the page re-publishes with additional content about the company, search engines will push the content. In turn, the ranking of this negative review can improve.

3) Pushing Positive Content

A key aspect of managing a brand’s online reputation is to create positive content that will rank well in search engine result pages. By constantly pushing out new, credible content you can increase awareness online and build up your brand’s reputation. Quality content could include customer testimonials, related articles, product reviews, press releases, or banner ads on relevant pages that link to your company website.

4) It’s Easier to Build a Good Reputation than Fix a Bad One

Hersh Davis-Nitzberg explains, “It’s easy to ignore your online reputation when everything is going well. But when a crisis strikes, suddenly the information about you on the internet can determine how the media, clients, and even your personal relationships will react. Be on top of your digital footprint before a crisis happens. If you lack an online presence or have a negative reputation, a crisis situation can become a top story. But, if you have established an authentic, positive, and robust reputation, the same event can be a blip on the radar. If something happens, take a step back and look at the big picture. There may not necessarily be a quick fix, but with a solid strategy, you can repair your brand. The biggest mistake you can make in a crisis is to respond without thinking. Quick reactions can turn a minor crisis into a disaster.”

The Dangers of Doing Your Own Social Media Background Checks

Why do we feel the need to post even the most minute details of our lives on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the dozens of other social media platforms? Because social media is now a part of our daily lives and without we feel lost. What users don’t realize is that everything they post is a reflection of them…the good, bad, and ugly.

For employers, this seems like a treasure trove with social media being the perfect place to begin a background check. And every once in a while you hear stories pop up of applicants losing out on opportunities because prospective employers discovered something incriminating on their social media pages.
However, employers now need to think twice before checking applicants’ social media pages for background information. Why you ask? Let’s dive deeper into this issue.

Protected Information
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discriminating against people in employment. Particularly, it outlaws discrimination on the basis of color, race, gender, religion and national origin. This makes it illegal to deny someone employment on the basis of these characteristics (classified as “protected information”).
Visiting an applicant’s social media page is almost guaranteed to provide access to protected information. The pictures and posts most often reveal an applicant’s gender, race, color and so on. Just accessing this information is a breach of anti-discrimination laws. If an applicant finds out and sues the employer, it becomes extremely difficult for the employer to claim that the information did not play a part in their decision making.
If you really must conduct a social media background check, your best option is to have a third-party person screen applicants based on specific criteria for jobs. This way, hiring managers can make their decisions about applicants without knowing characteristics like race, ethnicity or marital status.

False Image/Mistaken Identity
What happens when a social media background check comes back squeaky-clean? Nothing embarrassing, unethical or illegal is found…does this mean that the applicant is flawless? Obviously no, everybody knows that people can create multiple social media accounts.
Most people who behave in questionable ways online often create pseudonyms, accounts with no relation to their actual names. This factor reveals another flaw in conducting social media background checks. Because people mask their identities online, the check can reveal nothing incriminating. Meanwhile, the applicant can be far from squeaky clean.
Another problem with running a search is the possibility of mistaken identity. How do you know that the John Smith you’re looking at is the same one applying for a position? If there are multiple accounts with similar names the risk of misidentifying the person, and thus making a wrong decision is quite high.
Even when the account contains personal details and pictures of the applicant, this doesn’t mean that it is owned and run by them. There have been numerous cases where people – with the sole aim of malice – have created accounts in the names of other people. These accounts are often filled with enough personal details to make them look authentic. They are then peppered with racist, misogynistic, pornographic or other kinds of content designed to make the person look bad.

What Can Employers Do?
There are so many legal issues to avoid when using social media in the candidate screening processes, some HR professionals might wonder whether it’s worth all the trouble. The answer is yes—if it’s done carefully. Social media can expand the pool of applicants and shed valuable light on job candidates—when a disciplined approach is used, experts say.
“The benefits of using social media in recruiting are clear,” said David S. Baffa, a partner with Seyfarth Shaw in Chicago. Although it’s true there is a potential for costly lawsuits against employers who misuse social media, “most of the stuff you hear about potential risks, I haven’t seen it play out in litigation.”
The biggest concern with using social media in the hiring process is discrimination. Social media provides employers with information that they might not obtain otherwise or might not obtain until they conduct a face-to-face interview. Once the process moves to the screening phase, have someone other than the employment decision-maker do the screening, advises Jason Morris, president and COO of EmployeeScreenIQ in the Cleveland area. “Create a firewall between this person and the decision-maker,” he said, particularly if the screening will involve social media sites.
The screener should look online for certain red flags such as hate speech, violent tendencies, or drug use that would have a direct bearing on the candidate’s potential job performance. Employers should keep in mind that background-screening companies that use social media sites are subject to the provisions of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, under which applicants must give permission for pre-employment investigations.

Diversify the Applicant Pool
Another problem with using social media—particularly LinkedIn and Facebook—is that these sites have lower percentages of Latino and black users than are in the general population. That puts the burden on employers to widen their job searches through other means, such as job boards, newspapers, magazines and job fairs. Experts urge organizations to post notices on their websites that they are equal opportunity employers and that they seek a diverse pool of applicants from many sources.

About Us:
We have been mining social media since 2007 for our clients. By utilizing best in class software programs, we offer a service called eChatter.
eChatter works with you to obtain your objectives in a fast, accurate and reliable facet. By keeping our strengthened principals, yet evolving with this industry, we lead in social media monitoring. Since 2007, we have been dedicated to providing our customers with the most authentic data.

We offer:
• Deep Web Scans
• Jury Vetting
• Jury Monitoring
• Social Media Background Checks