Social Media Tactics: Easy (and Legal!) Corporate Espionage

Imagine going to a cocktail party with all the competition in your industry. The industry leaders are there. The up-and-comers are working the room. The movers and shakers in your space are talking shop with everyone there.

And the best part? They don't know who you are. Your true identity is shrouded in mystery!

Using platforms like Facebook and Twitter, executives using social media can create non-corporate accounts and follow their enemies' every move. Maybe they're promoting a price cut via their social networks, or spreading rumors of a new product launch. As one of their followers, you'll be the first to know and you'll be able to respond accordingly.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Register on Twitter with a handle unrelated to your company.
• Use the "Find People" link at the top of the page after you're signed in to find your targets
• Once you're following, you'll get updates on their every social network move
• If you compete in multiple spaces, you can create an account for each space
• Use a program called Tweetdeck to bring all aggregate all your accounts in one place (more on this tool in a coming post)
• Using Tweetdeck, you can also use saved searches that update automatically. So if you search for a competitor's name, Tweetdeck will notify you anytime anyone in the Twitter universe mentions them

These are just a few ideas to introduce you to social media espionage. In coming posts, we'll provide a thorough breakdown of the social media platforms as well as the tools executives can use to leverage the networks for results.

Stay tuned and stay sneaky.