The Rise of 'Dark Social'

What is Dark Social?

Dark social refers to sharing content through private channels that are difficult to track by traditional analytics tools. Think of sharing a link via a private message in WhatsApp, an e-mail or a direct message on a social media platform. Unlike public social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, where interactions can be easily tracked, interactions via dark social often remain hidden.

The concept was first introduced by Alexis C. Madrigal in 2012, when he realised that a significant proportion of traffic to websites came from sources that could not be identified. This traffic was often grouped under "direct traffic" in analytics tools, which meant it could not be attributed to a specific source or campaign.

Why is Dark Social Important for your Marketing?

Dark social is crucial because it accounts for a significant proportion of online traffic and interactions. According to some estimates, more than 80% of content sharing comes through dark social channels. This means that much of how your target audience consumes and shares your content is out of sight of traditional analytics.

Here are some reasons why dark social is important for your marketing:

• Understanding the Customer Journey: Dark social shows that the customer journey is more complex than what standard analytics report. Customers may come across and share your content via dark social, and then convert at a later stage. Without paying attention to dark social, you miss a large part of this journey.
• Better Content Strategy: If you know what content is popular in dark social channels, you can optimise your content strategy. Content that is frequently shared across dark social channels is often more personalised, more relevant and has higher engagement.
• Targeted Targeting: By understanding how and where your target audience shares content, you can better tailor your marketing efforts to their behaviour and preferences. This can lead to more targeted campaigns and ultimately higher ROI.

How Can You Measure Dark Social?

Measuring dark social is challenging, but not impossible. Here are some strategies you can use:

• Use of UTM parameters: By adding UTM parameters to your links, you can better track where traffic is coming from. While this won't catch all the dark social interactions, it can help you better understand some of the traffic.
• Segmentation of Direct Traffic: Much of the so-called 'direct traffic' is actually dark social traffic. By segmenting and analysing this traffic based on factors such as landing page, time of day, and device type, you can better understand what part of this traffic may be coming from dark social.
• Implementation of Share buttons: By using share buttons on your website or content platforms, you can turn some of the dark social traffic into measurable data. While this is not fully comprehensive, it can help you gain insight into which content is shared the most via these buttons.
• Advanced Analytics Tools: Some advanced analytics tools offer capabilities to better understand dark social traffic. These tools can analyse complex datasets and try to trace the source of the traffic.

Conclusion

Dark social represents a large and often invisible part of online interactions. It is a powerful phenomenon that marketers should not ignore if they want to get a complete picture of their target audience's behaviour. While measuring dark social remains challenging, there are several strategies you can use to better understand this hidden traffic. By paying attention to dark social and including it in your marketing strategy, you can develop more targeted and effective campaigns that respond to your customers' actual behaviour.

Understanding dark social is essential for any modern marketer. It allows you to look beyond the surface of traditional analytics and delve deeper into how content is actually shared and consumed in the digital world.