Industrial Espionage & Social Media

Most companies are concerned with cyber threats such as hacks, viruses, malware and denial of service attacks. Yet a new threat to industry comes from social media or social networking services. That is industrial espionage by a) recruitment of employees to buy secrets or b) monitoring of employees engaged in social media to gain insights into what is happening and c) moles as employees using social media to engage employees or transmit intelligence. We take a quick look at these threats;

1. Employee Recruitment: Sounds like cold war style stuff doesn’t it? Fact is, it happens and is happening. Someone makes “friends” via a social networking connection and over time builds a trust relationship with that person. The end-goal being to get key information from that employee. The agent doing the recruiting may be a State employee working for an intelligence department or it may be a competitor who has staff that do this (usually former police or intelligence officers) or retain a third party.

2. Monitoring for Social Network Intelligence: Using data mining tools, social media monitoring services or through manual research and assessment, a competitive company or government looks for keywords and small bits of information. This is intelligence that can be used to assess corporate activities like moving into a new market, taking over another company or product information. Employees who use services like Twitter, blogs or Facebook may not even realize the damage they can cause through sharing information – what they think is an innocent comment, connected by a trained analyst can draw a bigger picture for a competitor.

3. Employee Moles: A government or competitor may insert an employee into a company in a department where they may be able to steal corporate secrets such as software, product plans, financial information etc. This is a challenge for companies and depends on their security procedures and perceived level of threat. This is a fairly common practice however and companies can have difficulty in Canada, US, EU and UK with regards to how much they can dig into a persons background or ask for information. Nor can a company dictate what a person does outside work hours, such as being on Facebook or using Twitter.

Influence Competitors: The New Corporate Threat

A whole new scale of threat has evolved for corporations, and governments as well, in the court of public opinion. We call them Influence Competitors, some have called them Irregular Competitors. Regardless, these competitors are looking to influence the views and opinions of the same market businesses and governments may be looking to influence. Only they’re opposed to your views.

The way citizens and consumers receive, consume and share information today is highly complex, fast and easily spread to their own networks. Every person has a network of people that they have influence over, just as companies, governments and other organisations do, from markets to the general public. Today, it is very easy to influence people. It is also very hard to influence people. The biggest Influence Competitors that pose a threat to corporations and sometimes governments are activist groups. Non-Government Organisations and Non-Profits who target the practices of corporations they disagree with and government policy attempts or legislative moves they feel threaten their agenda or audience. Sometimes, competing companies will align with Influence Competitors as well, providing an entirely new dynamic to a company’s competitive landscape. At other times, activist groups will work with opposing political parties to the one in power, again adding a new dynamic.

Influence Competitors leverage social media as their primary tools with industrial news media used mainly to drive the message to social media where the battle for influence really begins. In industrial news media, an NGO may only get 3 minutes tops in the news cycle and then for only limited periods. Once they have eyeballs online, compelling content is used through video, images, text and sound to deliver sophisticated messaging and even encourages dialogue.

The Confidence Factor
Once an Influence Competitor has developed online dialogue through social media services and an audience has grown, it’s influence grows and they may then become an Authority Competitor. When citizens or consumers see others engaged in dialogue, actively contributing and adding content, this provides individuals with a sense of confidence – that others are committed to the cause. This creates the authority of the organisation (you might call it crowdsourcing your citizen activists) and it becomes increasingly difficult to unseat an Authority Competitor. Corporations or governments that don’t respond, or offer very little response, quickly lose influence share and citizens then take action.

So What? Why Does Citizens Shouting On Facebook Even Matter?
It’s easy to think they don’t. It’s easy to shrug off people venting on Twitter or blog posts and Facebook group pages. The reality is, it does matter and it has a very tangible, measurable and direct impact. The real-world results are phone calls, emails and letters to Senators, Members of Parliament, Congressional Representatives, industrial news media. Petitions go round. Protests happen. Sometimes, employees are attacked or facilities burned down or otherwise damaged. Or in the case of London, riots occur. Social media tools go from driving the idea to then being used for organising direct real-world activities.

Understanding Influence Competitor Threats
No social media monitoring tool will help. They may tell only part of the story and they’re not good warning indicators. What’s needed is a deep analysis into the lead Influence Competitor social graph, their connections, size of community, past campaigns and outcomes, current activities and more. Monitoring tools play a part, but analysis and insight from industry specialists, anthropologists, sociologists and law enforcement adds an unparalleled level of insight. Once this is known, then a strategy can be used.

Mobile Will Increase The Threat Level
As more and more citizens use SmartPhones and tablets like the iPad to participate in social media services, the threat from Influence Competitors will only increase. With the ability to live-stream video and instantly upload photo’s integrated with real-time services like Twitter, the challenge to monitor and then dig deep into the issues will become increasingly difficult. This will present a new challenge for public and investor relations teams, marketers, corporate legal counsel and the C-suite. CEO’s if they are the spokesperson, will face some interesting challenges. These are issues well beyond simple reputation management of a brand.

What Kind of Threats?
This is where influence and authority trump reputation management. The types of threats coming from Influence Competitors are those that can cause significant economic damage or bring down a government (such as Egypt, but that’s okay, it was a dictatorship) or potentially cause catastrophic damage to a company. These threats include;

- Derailing legislative efforts

- Destroying lobbying efforts

- Changes in legislation that derails a corporate plan

- Causing damage to physical assets

- Threatening employees or causing harm

- Cause a stock price to plummet or a competitors to rise

- Balance the influence in favor of a competitor

- Create petitions and enable an opposition government to cause collapse of a government in power

Fortunately we provide analysis and monitoring of Influence Competitors. Look for our White Paper coming soon. In a world of Big Data, companies and governments need to be able to quickly sift through vast amounts of information to find the intelligence that matters.

Why Social Media Really Works in Civil Actions

Issues for protest or causing some form of unrest aside, the real reason social media tools have been a key technology in driving significant societal changes comes down to one reason we propose – lowered individual risk and group comfort. One person protesting in front of city hall is unlikely to cause a change. You need a lot of people. Our research into Keystone XL and the use of social media by civil society groups showed how now even groups can connect with other groups to take action on issues.

Herd Mentality
The truth is that we as humans prefer to act in groups. We have to. One person alone cannot build an office tower. When we see others gathering, we are more likely to join in when we share that groups values, ideas, opinions or vision.

Social Media Shows Commitment
Look at a Facebook group page on an issue of society, a celebrity or brand. If one group has thousands of followers we assume that group is generally more popular. A group page with just a few members isn’t as compelling. We’ll go for the group with more people – in general. An individual will go where there’s the perception of others with similar views. As social media tools thrive on high volumes of users, require little to know technical skills and are available through mobile devices as well, a person can quickly see when something is becoming popular. When we see others are committed, we’re more likely to commit.

Digital Mob Mentality
When an issue takes off, like #Occupy, Egyptian revolution or the London riots of 2011, people go into what we term Digital Mob Mentality. They are fast to comment and quick to share with their peer networks. This becomes a feeding frenzy of information. Coordination is quick, communication is essentially at zero cost and there is no friction. To those that suggest “slacktivism” takes place, yes, to some degree. But as the above events and many others show, the slacktivists are far less than those who can and do actively participate in the issue.

Hyper-Momentum & Networks
Because of the significant increases in the use of mobile data devices (SmartPhones and Tablets) and the easy access to social media technologies over increasingly higher bandwidth networks, an issue gains what we call hyper-momentum. The story spreads fast and furious. Far faster than ever before in human history. No one has to wait for mail to arrive or has to be at home to take the phone call. And every one of us has social networks of friends, family, co-workers etc. And we trust news and actions of friends very quickly. More so than official government communications. In several research projects we’ve done for governments around the use of social media in both natural and man-made disasters, we see a greater reliance on information passed through social networks or the social graph than that coming from government (including policing and fire services.)

In Summary
When we see other people taking part in something we are curious. Whenever we see a crowd, we are curious as to what has drawn other peoples attention. These behaviours are simply translated to online services through social media. The more we see others with a similar view are committed to an action, the more likely we are to participate. It’s as simple as that. And we have plenty of evidence.

Mobile & Social Media Global Issues Forecast

Just last year the Indian government decided to implement a program to bring the world’s cheapest tablet device to the population. This to drive increased use of the Internet by it’s citizens. A brilliant move. A Canadian manufacturer won that bid. This signalled a radical change that will begin to have a significant global impact into 2012. In ways that go far beyond the world of consumerism and brands.

2012 Will Be The Year of Mobile. So what?
Nothing new in that proclomation is there? Every pundit and forecaster is saying the same thing. Yet it is true. The impact however, is not just on the world of brands and presenting yet another challenge to marketers, it is more about the impact on the developing world and in regards to how we live and connect as humans globally. As millions of devices spill into the market with high-end devices in developed nations, the developing nations will suddenly have access to a whole new world of content and learning…and engagement.

The Nature of Mobile Content in Social Media
Our research has shown us that engagement in mobile devices is different for social media. For the most part, the most popular form of content created is images via cameras, followed by sharing of other content created more often by non-mobile devices such as PC’s or in media facilities. Very little text content is generated beyond essentially, that of a “tweet” or 140 characters. It is the exception, not the rule, for long blog posts to be written on a smartphone or tablet like the iPad or Galaxy.

The Nature of Mobile Engagement in Social Media
Engagement – or actual interaction on social media services tends to be shorter than on a PC or fixed-device, even a laptop. While laptop computers are mobile, we don’t really classify them as such as they are not “instant-on” or “always-on” devices like tablets and smartphones. The primary purposes of engagement in social media with mobile devices is 1) status updating & checking 2) planning & organising for social or business meetings 3) sharing content from another in ones network or received from another and 4) sharing images and videos. We anticipate significant increases in the sharing of live and streaming video of everything from music concerts to protests like the Occupy movement.

Civil Society & Mobile Device Use
The protests of 2012 will be lively and they will be shared in still and moving image form unlike ever before. This increased sharing will result in either bigger and longer-lasting protests or smaller protests where people can observe and don’t feel the need to participate. More likely we will see wider spread use of these devices in the areas of change for civil society. One risk is the possibility of more “staged events” by protestors and activists such as acts of vandalism or stunts to generate increased awareness. This may present a new challenge to corporations and policing services trying to maintain some form of healthy expression of democratic rights.

The Societal Debates Will Increase
As a result of the use of these mobile devices in civil society by populations for change and democratic expression, we anticipate even more debates around privacy and civil actions. Governments in democracies can no longer just hit a “kill switch” for risk of facing significant outrage by the public. Carriers and content providers will increasingly ask citizens and consumers to give up more of their privacy and that will spark even further debate.

The Mobile World Is Upon Us
So no doubt that significant changes are coming as more and more people are connected. Consumers have found their voice regarding engagement with brands. Now the consumer as a citizen may very well find their voice for changes in society; good and bad. Over 2 Billion humans connect to the Internet today. With the rapid spread of mobile devices, a far lower infrastructure cost than landlines, increased data rates of mobile service providers and ease of use of these devices, the game is truly on in 2012 into 2015 and beyond. An additional challenge for governments and corporations will be capturing useful insights out of the ever increasing and vast amounts of data available online.

Social Media As a Soft Power Tool in Global Affairs

Based on much of our research, social media is not just a tool for promoting democracy (although that is hotly debated) but we see it as becoming a “soft power” tool on global issues. Perhaps one that even citizens can use to garner influence and attention from other nation states. For those not familiar with hard and soft power, in a very simple way it is this; “hard power” is the use of military forces in a direct way (i.e. bombing Libya recently to aid democratic forces) whereas “soft power” are tools like sanctions (economic) that can impact a country (e.g. sanctions against Syria’s dictatorship.)

Social Media and The Art of Political Perceptions in Soft Power
Perhaps one of the best examples of using social media tools in the ongoing game of “soft power” is the US State Department. Closely followed by the UK government. On the dictatorial side is Iran with it’s army of counter revolutionary bloggers and the likes of Hugo Chavez using Twitter (given all the coffee Chavez drinks Twitter would seem to suit him.)

These tools become just another part of the arsenal of persuasion and perception development/management as part of a governments communications strategy. But they are not insignificant as some might think. In ways small and large, these messages enter the Cyburbian stream of concsiousness, they are shared, edited, discussed, debated and added to. They can also add context to a situation that may not find coverage in traditional news media.

Defining Positioning
Using social media services, governments can define their positions more clearly using text, images and video. This then becomes a relied upon source by academia, think-tanks and other governments. We’re not indicating the “truth” of a statement or definition of a position, just that this is how they can be used. How they are used.

Civil Society Has a Big Voice
The other side of this is that civil society groups (from Greenpeace to PETA to Medicins Sans Frontiers) now have a global voice. They can and do use these tools to shape views, opinions and perceptions. Influential citizens can join the conversation as well and become thought leaders both for an against issues in any language or culture. This new ability for civil society to participate in the global dialogue and have influence is a new dynamic in applying to soft power.

There is a whole new dynamic to global communications and their impact on the use of soft power tools. One that will offer some fascinating areas of study for many years to come.