Social Media Insights: Shedding Light On Dark Social!
Dark social is a term that has been thrown around in the digital marketing world for a few years now. Yet we’re still struggling to get to the crux of exactly what it is and – more importantly – why on earth PR and marketing teams should take note of it.
What is dark social
The truth is, there is no universally acknowledged definition of dark social. But it is widely accepted that it can encapsulate any form of social content that cannot be easily viewed, tracked or analysed (i.e. your social listening and analysis tools won’t be able to pick it up). Think emails, texts, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and other direct messaging apps. The term ‘dark social’ is most commonly used to refer to the sharing of links through these apps, as this leads traffic to a website without a trackable source that can be picked up by the site’s analytics platform. For example, if you’re looking at Google Analytics, any traffic coming from ‘dark social’ will usually show up under the bracket of ‘direct’ traffic.
Why you should care about it
With three of the top five global social media platforms sitting in the ‘messaging apps’ bucket – and therefore prime providers of dark social – there is simply no escaping its importance in the PR and communications space.
Moreover, the value of dark social traffic is arguably much higher than from any other referral due to its perceived reliability. For example, if you find a link to a product that your friend is looking for and send it on to her, she is more likely to purchase it than if she sees it on a banner ad or boosted social post.
But what can we do about it?
Well, most organisations are already doing something about it without even knowing. Those that encourage customer service queries into private messages, for example. This practice solves customer solutions quickly, efficiently and directly – all without making the whole conversation public.
But this is not enough.
In order to view dark social in the same way as other traffic sources, and adjust your communications plan accordingly, you need a way to track at least some of the potential dark social referrals reaching your site. You can combat this through social tracking tools such as Get Social, or by making some adjustments to your Google Analytics data view. Thankfully Little Red 🐓’s favorite social media marketing expert, social media examiner, has written a helpful guide to help you do exactly that.
Looking for help with your social media strategy, content, community management or paid social campaigns? Contact our social media team at kirsty@littleredpr.co.uk or drop us a DM on one of our channels!
