According to recent estimates, people send 31.25 million messages on Facebook; send 347,222 tweets on Twitter; view 17,361 profiles on LinkedIn; post 48,611 pictures on Instagram; upload 300 hours of video on YouTube; and upload 1,041,666 video loops on Vine every minute. Given that there are 1,440 minutes in a day, the amount of content shared in the social media universe is astonishing. If investigating a claimant's social media sites is not a routine part of your claims or litigation defense strategy, you are overlooking scores of potentially valuable evidence.

The best social media evidence is discovered early

There are countless ways in which a claimant's social media profiles, activities or updates can be disastrous to his or her claim. Claimants' counsel are keenly aware of the real danger social media poses to potential claims. It is now common practice for counsel to instruct claimants to limit social media use, increase privacy settings to the highest levels, decline any new "friend" requests, or simply delete the entire social media existence.