Social Media for Private Investigators

A strategy guide to help private investigators understand social media services

Private Investigation Agency Marketing Versus Social Media

The following strategy guide was written by L. Scott Harrell, a great friend of ours.
While the strategy was written in 2013, the guide has proven to be invaluable to our clients.

While I am probably the one of the most outspoken proponents of social media marketing, I’d also be one of the first people to also say that it is not right for every business or agency owner as well. First, “retail” private investigation agency clients, individuals that need assistance with personal matters, are VERY concerned about their privacy; that is probably the only blanket statement I can reliably and comfortably make about them as a group. It is exceedingly rare to find a prospective client who is mining social media to find an investigation service provider or who would be willing to air their sensitive personal troubles publicly. Posting, “Can you find out if my husband is having an affair with my best friend?” on Twitter or Facebook is a bit of folly; clients require discretion and social media doesn’t really foster a sense of confidentiality.

Social networks, however, do provide a great deal of visibility at a very low cost. Simply put, social network marketing is a GREAT way to build an overall online presence that you hope prospects will run into when their need arises. To put it another way, the bigger net you build, the better your chances are of catching fish. Social media is also extremely effective when used as a tool to reach specific people or business as a part of an overall strategy of public outreach. Using my fishing analogy think of social media as a spear gun; you can readily dive in, find a target and take your best shot! Establishing yourself as local media’s go-to business person on a broad range of maters in which private investigators have ken insight and becoming the local subject matter expert on these topics has never been easier.
Trust and thought leadership converts prospects into buyers. You’ll hear me say that again.

Another reason why social media marketing may not be right for you is the consideration that time you spend on social media is time you’re not spending working in your business. Social media is a major
time-suck and requires a committed investment of time and focus. You cannot be immersed in your investigation or out serving process if you’re busy curating content to build and fed your social audience.

Lastly, you will not likely find “commercial” clients (business or individuals that regularly employ private investigators for business purposes) using social media. What do you think the odds are of landing a national insurance agency client because of a witty meme you’ve shared with your friends on Facebook? How many attorneys do you think are trolling Twitter to find the right investigator? My guess is that he odds are probably hovering around zero percent.

If you are going to ad social media to your marketing mix (and you really MUST these days), you ned to find the right social networks in which to invest time and money and then properly leverage its tools and functionality to get the most out of your efforts. Al social networks are not built he same and each has its specific strengths and weaknesses, which you should identify and use to compliment your own business needs and personality.

Right now, there are basically six viable choices when it comes to social network platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Goggle+, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest. Let’s talk a bit about each.

Facebook

Facebook is, hands down the largest social network having just topped over one billion users. It is the most popular social network among private investigators as well; in a recent poll I conducted online across Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn investigators and process servers overwhelmingly indicated that they would choose a Facebook presence over any other social network or a company blog.

The reasons are pretty clear. Facebook offers a simple and almost instant legitimate online presence without the need to build and market a dedicated website. Facebook was consistently applauded by respondents for the ability to connect with other investigators both personally and professionally. I would add that Facebook makes it easy to target specific business-types and media contacts, too. I’ve always used Facebook to build agency brand recognition and referral traffic through positive discussion on pages and in groups that are popular with potential business prospects.

Others mentioned that Facebook was free or low cost, though in my own experience, it is becoming increasingly difficult to build a page presence without promoting posts. Facebook’s recently decided to significantly throttle back page post visibility in user’s newsfeeds in favor of a nominal “pay to promote” fee that, supposedly, ensures that promoted posts will be seen by more fans. I personally have some serious questions about the technical aspects of this and see serious consequences and a downward spiral of engagement once a business starts paying to reach its fans. I’ve had a couple of negative experiences with while experimenting with paying to promote posts via the CompassPoint Investigations Facebook page; you can read more about them here.

As I mentioned in the introduction of this article, privacy is a paramount concern among clients. Facebook offers the least amount of anonymity to its users both due to the size of its user base as well as its poor privacy controls.

My other complaint about marketing via Facebook is the less-than-stellar mobile app for iOS and Android smartphones. I’ve read numerous studies that prove Internet users are increasingly moving to mobile devices. Mobile online traffic to Facebook pages is not converting as well as via other social network apps, such as Google+ and Twitter.

I visited ten private investigator and process serving agency Facebook pages while preparing this article and what I saw was pretty astonishing, really; only four of them included where in the world the agency was located in the “About” section, three pages provided an email address to reach the business and two pages had Facebook users outside of the United States blocked from accessing the page entirely.

Proper Facebook page optimization and marketing is a specific topic that really deserves its own article altogether, but generally I found that the overwhelming majority of these ten pages could do the following 5 things much better and see very positive results:

Include the agency domain name in the “About” section of the Facebook page (and don’t forget to include the “http://” in the URL!)
Ensure that the profile image describes or reflects the business; I use my company logo as a way to reinforce branding.
Use the “cover image” (the big picture at the top that spans the width of the Facebook page) to your advantage. Quickly and succinctly tell your page visitor what your business does and where.
Ensure that your page is not just restricted to Facebook users from the United States
Build a sense of community on your page that is local to your area of operation by giving your audience great information that addresses their questions and needs without them having to ask for it specifically. Anticipate their needs through your experiences with past clients; this sets your agency apart from the competition and establishes trust and thought leadership, which converts prospects into clients when they are ready to buy.
Engage your fans through the use of questions and get a discussion going. Give them a reason to keep coming back. (I find a bit of controversy always does the trick!)

Twitter

Twitter was originally considered a “micro-blog,” a service through which you could write your memoirs in 140 characters or less. The service has evolved into a powerful real-time communication platform, IF you are willing to invest in the time and commit to remaining actively engaged. Expect to invest a great deal of time maintaining conversations with power-users you’ve identified as important to your marketing strategy.

Truthfully, I find Twitter a bit overwhelming and way too time-consuming. Tweets from users I am following come at me fast and furiously and it can be tough to keep up if I am not paying attention. I expect the same is also happening to those who are simultaneously following me and hundreds of other users. The latency of any tweet is really measured in minutes for the average user.

The upside is that by familiarizing yourself with advanced search tools and hashtag management, it is fairly straightforward to identify and connect with local influencers and media contacts. At least one respondent to my poll indicated that he had landed three clients via Twitter versus one client via Facebook.

I cheat a bit and have Twitter set up to automatically send out a tweet every time I post to my Facebook profile or pages. It’s a pretty hands-off approach and I rarely visit Twitter much as a consequence. If you’re trying to connect with me via Twitter and cannot get my attention, that’s why (in a nutshell).

Google+

From a search engine optimization and search engine marketing point of view, there is no better option right now than to set up a complete profile and start posting content to Google+ right away! I find content that I am posting to Google+ is being indexed and highly ranked in Google Search in a matter of hours rather than days.

While posting and sharing content is VERY easy, there is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to navigating the Google+ social experience and building connections with other users; the process is very different from Facebook and not as intuitive as it could be.

Privacy controls are more granular; once you learn to manage your contacts into what Google+ calls “circles,” you will find that getting content to the right people, and then protecting that content from further distribution, is better than the other social platforms. I’ve set up personal and professional circles, as well as circles that are based upon my own personal interests, as a result I can easily share various types of content with the right audience confidentially and conveniently and effectively filter the type of content I want to see, when I am ready for it.

Google+ has an innovative feature called Google Hangouts, which is essentially super-simple video conferencing and a great way to connect with clients, subcontractors, employees and peers. The marketing uses of Hangouts are only limited by your imagination and desire to be on-camera.

The most powerful aspect of Google+ is that the platform is fully integrated into all of the tools and products Google has to offer- Gmail, Drive, Docs, Calendar, YouTube, Search and Local. It is a breeze to create a seamless command center that facilitates communication, marketing, agency operations and much, much more!

The obvious problems Google+ has as a social network is that it still has far fewer users than Facebook and is growing very slowly. My sense is that business owners are getting a bit overwhelmed by all of the social networks the marketing pundits are telling us that we must be focusing on if our businesses are going to survive. I tend to look at Google+ as less of a social tool, where I am connecting with other users on a personal level, but as a very effective content distribution channel and search engine optimization and marketing tool.

Linked In

LinkedIn is undoubtedly a favorite among private investigators and agency owners for finding and connecting with others professionally. I particularly like the fact that when I have a need for help on the other side of the world, I can reach out and find recommended professionals very quickly. This is, in fact, the true power of LinkedIn as a business-to-business (B2B) marketing network.

I also like that LinkedIn remains relatively free of non-professional posts and updates.

When I am searching for an investigation service provider for assistance, I definitely look for the small details in potential providers’ LinkedIn profiles:

Is the profile complete?
Does their background reflect my investigative needs?
Has the person been professionally recommended by colleagues and clients?
Have they written any articles that I can reference?
Do they have a website where I can learn more?
How do I get a hold of this investigator or process server right now?

This social media platform also rated extremely well with poll respondents and was only edged out by Facebook by a small percentage. To unlock the full functionality of LinkedIn, adding unlimited connections, advanced search functionality and be able to reach out to users not within your network, you’ll have to subscribe to the paid version, which many investigators find very expensive when considering the other free social networks. I suspect that this is the only reason why more investigators choose Facebook as the social network platform they use for marketing.

Tip: Be sure to take advantage of the new LinkedIn personal profile layout and create a LinkedIn business page!

Youtube

YouTube videos can rank very highly on Google, oftentimes on the first page without a great deal of effort at all – just a little care and attention to selecting the right video title and a solid keyword focused video description can do the trick. From a search engine optimization perspective, backlinks from YouTube, which you include yourself, are powerful back-links!

The visual message presented through video is highly effective and prospective clients find video more digestible than reading a lot of advertising copy.

Which would you prefer, to watch a two or three minute video or read over one thousand words?

Most would choose the former. So will your prospective clients and they will appreciate the ability to get information with the least amount of effort.

Additionally, it is irrefutable that prospects make purchasing decisions based first upon confidence and trust; when agency owners step in front of the camera with a message of sincerely and empathy, video can create a sense of connectedness and familiarity that can overcome the psychological barriers some retail clients struggle with just to pick up the phone and share often embarrassing personal details with a complete stranger.

The introduction of “pre-roll” video advertisements by YouTube (unless specifically blocked when you post your video) is beginning to annoy users. The advertising can also make seamlessly incorporating video directly into a company website or blog a challenge. This should not deter you from creating video, however, and there are other advertising-free options from which to choose.

One last thought about YouTube: Videos can attract negative and snarky comments from random YouTube users, be sure to set your video preferences to allow you to moderate and approve comments before they are publicly posted. Consider turning video ratings off as well.

Many online businesses are reporting that Pinterest is driving a great deal of referral traffic to their websites. Investigation agency owners have been slow to adopt the social network and, as a result, I have not heard much from other private investigators about whether or not they are experiencing any real successes there yet.

I’ve included Pinterest in this article for two important reasons worthy of your consideration:

Pinterest is the fastest growing social network right now and,

Visual media, images and video, has been cited as the most effective form of advertising being employed across social networks. One only needs to look to Facebook and see that visual posts are shared, commented on and “liked” most often.

Pinterest does imagery and video very well!

While an investigation agency might not lend itself to selling via visual appeal like an online retail business might, imagery can easily elicit an emotional response when used intelligently. Emotion can be a powerful part in moving a prospect towards making the decision to buy.

Personally, I’m not investing a great deal of time or capital in Pinterest on behalf of my agency right now, but I have started using Pinterest to help round out my efforts to build a more personal brand (if you will).

One area of concern I do have about the commercial use of Pinterest is running into intellectual property and copyright entanglements.

Click here for a great article about minimizing your legal risks using social media: http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/45717.aspx

Regardless of which social networks you choose to ply there is some VERY basic advice that applies to all social networks:

Fill out your personal network profile completely, if not completely then at the very least your profession, location and one way to get in touch with you outside of the network. To capitalize on personal referrals from friends and acquaintances you have to remain relevant and top of mind; don’t keep personal connections guessing at what you do professionally or where you are located. For example, if a “friend of a friend” needs a referral for a private investigator in Northwest Florida I want all of my social connections to know and remember that my agency is in Pensacola, Florida!

The same applies if you have a specific business profile page!

Include a call to action! What is it that you want the person reading your post or watching your video to do? You have to tell them:

“Like this picture if…”
“Share this video with…”
“What do you think? Write to me in the comments below…”
“For more information, visit…”
“If you have a question, call me at…”

The trick is not to come across as spammy or overwhelming. Undoubtedly, you’ve come across this problem in your travails in social media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Mxza2Ybwk94

I’d certainly be interested to hear from other agency owners about your own personal experiences with any of these particular social networks.

What successes are you having and where?

Do you have any tricks that you have employed to get the best return on the time and money you’ve invested in social media?

Leave them in the comments below or, alternatively, visit me at http://about.me/scottharrell, where you can find links to all of my social profiles.

I look forward to hearing from you soon!

L. Scott Harrell is the managing principal of CompassPoint Investigations, a thriving private investigation agency based in Pensacola, Florida. As the founder of several very successful investigations-related start-ups, he also speaks to other private investigation agency owners on matters of marketing, creativity and client acquisition through the real-world application of technology, time-tested techniques and walking a mile (or two) in their shoes. Find him guest posting on PI Marketing, or reach him directly, via email, at scott@compasspointpi.com

Learn more marketing ideas and advertising strategies for private investigation and process serving agency owners over at Private Investigator Marketing’s Facebook page by visiting the following link – http://www.facebook.com/PIMarketing

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