I was training a pr company in digital marketing last week and one of the team asked ‘What is Dark Social? We had just discussed Black Hat SEO so the dark! theme for the morning was really hitting its straps.
Dark Social is simply the sharing that happens off social networks. This could be sharing a link via email or messenger or receiving a gift suggestion from a friend etc. Think about how many times you have emailed colleagues or friends with a Read This! subject link of the latest news article or blog post.
So while many digital marketers are madly measuring their ROI on their social networks there is a world out there that we are all participating in and yet it rarely gets mentioned or measured. This is important as social content is getting shared and yet it is not being captured to prove its ROI.
This week a new report called The Dark Side of Mobile Sharing gave some further insights into this issue. These are their findings:
- 84% of consumer outbound sharing is done via Dark Social (view image below)
- Consumers respond the most to Dark Social sharing on their mobiles
- Australia leads the world in mobile shares via Dark Social
Harnessing Dark Social
1. Use a Bitly shortener to ensure you can track your shares
2. Add a URL link to your site at the end of all your website content that is copied and pasted
3. Use a tool like RadiumOne, OwnerIQ and others to measure the activity
4, Measuring via Google Analytics
