Welcome to the dark side—it’s all positive for your brand, we swear.
While the dark web might have convinced you that any phrase prefixed with “dark” is shady—possibly illegal—dark social is far from something to avoid. It includes all those links you share within your family WhatsApp groups or the in-person discussion over a product that recently went viral. Raise your hand if you ever talked about the latest Hailey Bieber lip gloss over coffee and suddenly saw an ad for it on your phone. That’s dark social in action.
Remarkably, dark social accounts for 95% of a brand’s web traffic. No doubt, then, it is an important metric for digital marketers to understand—but given its hush-hush nature, how do you measure it?
In this article, we’ll delve into the world of dark social media and how your brand can bring it to light (pardon the pun).
What is dark social?
Dark social, a term coined by journalist Alexis C. Madrigal in 2012, refers to sharing content through private digital channels that conventional web analytics tools cannot track.
This includes links and content shared via text messages or private groups on messaging apps like WhatsApp, Discord and Slack, as well as on social platforms like Facebook and Instagram. It also extends to mentioning products or services in a YouTube video or a podcast episode. Even in-person conversations are a form of dark social—remember your coffee chat from earlier? Sounds like a Black Mirror episode, doesn’t it?
This kind of sharing makes up a big chunk—as much as 84%—of what gets shared online. However, for marketers, this kind of engagement is tricky because they can’t track dark social media as straightforwardly as with regular website visits.
Why your brand needs to track dark social
Owing to the ubiquity of dark social—where memes, information and links are constantly exchanged—it is crucial for brands to tap into these conversations. Here’s why:
1. Gather valuable insights: Much like social listening (i.e. prying on customer opinions and reviews online), monitoring dark social offers brands profound insights into which content resonates with their audience and where it’s being shared.
2. Explore untapped marketing potential: Tracking dark social unveils hidden marketing opportunities. Brands can identify new audience segments, influential figures and channels for potential targeting.
3. Get accurate analytics and ROI: Ignoring dark social can lead to skewed analytics and misunderstood return on investment (ROI). Accounting for it ensures you have a complete view of your marketing performance.
Is dark social untraceable?
Here’s the juicy part. Picture an elusive, mysterious female lead in a movie (brownie points if you thought of Morticia Addams from The Addams Family). That’s what dark social is like.
Dark social is notoriously tough to monitor and quantify. The sharing that happens in these private corners of the internet doesn’t leave behind referral data, which is what analytics tools rely on to trace where traffic comes from. Moreover, many of these dark social channels operate with encryption, adding another layer of complexity that stumps traditional web analytics in pinpointing the original source of the referral.
Often, dark social traffic gets lumped into the “direct” category in analytics reports. But this classification can be misleading, as it’s unlikely that users manually type out lengthy URLs to access the content. While challenging, tracing dark social isn’t entirely impossible.
Ways to track dark social
Maybe dark social cannot be precisely tracked. But that doesn’t mean you can’t even have a piece of the action. Here are some ways you can track dark social:
1. Set up Google Analytics segments: Customize Google Analytics to better understand dark social traffic by creating specific segments. This setup lets you filter and focus on the data that matters.
For example, using filters in Google Analytics, you can focus on getting data from users who explore different web pages on your website. If your goal is to understand what people are looking for on your website, you might want to skip visitors who land directly on your homepage and leave afterward.
To track referral traffic from dark social channels, include visits categorized as “direct traffic” in Google Analytics. These are visits where people type your website URL directly into their browser.
2. Enhance your content tracking with trackable links: By incorporating urchin tracking modules (UTMs)—customizing a URL by adding a snippet of a code to enable tracking—and link shorteners (like bit.ly), you can effectively monitor your content’s sharing and gather insights into your audience’s behavior.
Plus, continuing on the path of trackable links, you can take charge of how your content is privately shared. Integrate sharing options on your website, like “share via WhatsApp”, “share via email” or “share via SMS”, each linked with a trackable URL. This approach allows you to pinpoint the most popular sharing channels, trace the traffic sources and leverage the power of personal recommendations.
3. Get up close and personal with your own dark social community: Become a friend, a confidante, or, in other words, become the person who receives these dark social links. Running private communities associated with your brand demands dedication and time, but the returns can be substantial when executed effectively.
Consider dbrand, a company that has excelled in fostering engagement within its subreddit, r/dbrand. Here, customers freely share their latest brand purchases, pitch new product ideas and offer mutual support and advice (something they would otherwise do one-on-one). Through this organic interaction, the brand’s identity is strengthened, and it has eyes and ears on its customers.
Now that you know how to woo Morticia Addams, make sure to pull a major Gomez and continually engage to keep the magic alive. Since millions of people are discussing a range of topics and products every day, it’s important not to fall behind lest you miss out on any important conversations. At the same time, leverage insights to create shareable content that does well on dark social. This way, your brand can thrive in the shadowy corners of dark social.
Also read:
- Dark Web: The Good, Bad and Ugly of This Online Underworld
- What Are Dark Patterns and Why Google, YouTube & Facebook Are in Trouble for Them
- Social Listening Explained: How Your Business Can Benefit
Header Image from Freepik
