On any given day, the typical U.S. worker communicates across myriad communications platforms—from text and IM, to social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter and enterprise social software like Jive and Chatter. Coupled with the pervasive habit of the bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon, companies are regularly exposing themselves to risk, and they often don't even know it.

As these forms of all-the-time communication continue to pervade organizations—and threaten their viability—compliance concerns continue to escalate among highly regulated companies such as financial and healthcare organizations.

As such, social media and other communications content are becoming a more popular target of opposing counsel in e-discovery. In fact, the discovery of social content has doubled annually over the last several years, according to John Patzakis, an attorney and CEO of X1, a company that develops search and investigative software for lawyers. In addition, a 2013 survey by the International Association of Chiefs of Police of about 500 law enforcement agencies found that over 80 percent of them used social media in criminal investigations, as U.S. courts have made it clear that discovery of social media is fair game.