In the capital intensive world of technology and telecom millions of dollars are at risk when it comes to decisions related to product development and to-market strategies. A better informed executive team makes smarter, more strategic decisions and, as a result, enhances a company's chances for success.

For this reason, companies invest considerable resources to gather intelligence about competitors. What features are planned for their next generation product? Are they cutting price in a move to grab market share? Why are they hiring sales representatives on the west coast?

On the up and up, most technology vendors field a business analyst team to gather competitive insight from public sources. They crawl Web sites. They troll trade show floors chatting up booth representatives. And they talk to customers, prospects and partners.

A select few have demonstrated comfort with the clandestine. The business press from time-to-time breaks news of corporate spying via dumpster diving, as well as the illegitimate downloading from password-protected Web sites.

There is simply no justification for these ethically questionable (and possibly illegal) actions. However, one can understand the motivation because of the importance of competitive insight.

At Strategic Communications Group (Strategic), we have been thinking about how social networks and online communities can be appropriately leveraged as part of an intelligence gathering initiative. Here are a few ideas:

1. Start with a comprehensive social media audit of a competitor. Map the LinkedIn profiles, Twitter feeds, blogs and other forms of social media engagement of their corporate, marketing and technical executives.

2. Study the competitor's community of followers, subscribers and connections. Build a Web of companies they are aligned with and then organize the list by suspected customer, prospect and partners. This is a baseline

3. Monitor daily and identify new additions to the competitors' social network. These additions will give you valuable insight into competitor's sales activities, partnerships, capital fundraising and recruitment.

Of course, in any competitive intelligence gathering activity it is paramount that a company always identity itself accurately and openly. Even with this absolute requirement for transparency, you may be pleasantly surprised with what a competitor reveals through its social media footprint.

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