From time to time, a customer will tell us that they found something that we didn’t in a particular search. Fair enough. It’s going to happen and we always appreciate the feedback. However, we ask customers to consider the overall quality of the search results they receive in the overwhelming majority of our searches. A growing number of organizations investigate prospective hires, employees, customers, or claimants on the Internet today. Failure to do so would be highly irresponsible given the rich information available on virtually everyone. The average perfunctory search takes an average of 30+ minutes for what is basically a quick and cursory troll of information generating no formal book of record.

Is your organization relying on this type of methodology to review this type of mission critical data? How many untold hours are spent by employees surfing the internet to discover bits and pieces of information without an overall view nor a formal report? Social Discovery provides organizations with a proven better way that will save you time, money and standardize this process so employee time can remain focused on mission critical tasks and not surfing the internet. Do your employees conduct their own criminal records research? Of course not! Social media investigations are no different.

Every organization needs a proven, cost effective methodology to produce these reports consistently. Consider this: Do you currently pay for criminal background, financial records and other reports and is it standard practice to bill clients for this service? If you think social media search and reporting is free just because you can access it on the internet, then you should analyze how many hours you spend during the course of a week or month on this activity. Social media reporting is quickly becoming the goto source for frontline investigations and just because it’s somewhere on the internet waiting to be discovered by anyone with the proper skill to find and report on it does not mean it is free. If you think your time is free then perhaps it is. However, major firms now charge for this on a regular basis and paid social media reports are regularly offered to clients from mid to large-sized private investigative organizations that range in price from around a hundred to several hundred dollars.

With SDC’s value pricing, you receive bulk data reports for far less money and with the tools we provide to PI’s, and all with the ability to actually edit the PDF. In minutes, you can generate a customized, branded (with your logo and colors) report that you can legitimately upcharge to your clients. These reports are no longer a freebie pass through, they are a critical component of almost every investigation and source to effectively generate more income in your practice. If you do not use SDC, so be it, but if nothing else think about what it means to give your time (and subsequently your money) away for free. We’ve heard some say that their 10-year old can conduct this type of search, but when you really stop to look at the detail and process including everything from authentication to creating a detailed report with relevant links and metadata, it’s clear that’s not an accurate statement.