Why Your Business Can’t Ignore Dark Social

Picture this: You're at work, feeling drained and sluggish at 3 pm. To perk yourself up, you sneak a glance at BarkPost, tilting your computer screen to avoid detection from your boss.

You stumble upon a hilarious listicle titled "18 Signs Your Dog Has A Secret Second Family" and decide to share it with your co-parent of your furry friend. To do so, you copy the URL and paste it into an email message. Congratulations, you've just participated in "dark social."

We've all shared articles privately, using means other than social media. Perhaps it was to bypass the workplace's no-personal-social-media rule or to keep our reading preferences private, like reading an article titled "An Open Letter From a Corgi to the People Who Laugh at His Butt."

Due to its widespread occurrence, dark social accounts for 84 percent of outbound sharing. But what exactly is this phenomenon, where does it originate, and more importantly, how can your business leverage it? Here's everything you need to know.

What is Dark Social?

The concept of "dark social" was first introduced by Alexis Madrigal, a former deputy editor at The Atlantic, in a 2012 article. It refers to the act of sharing content privately through channels like email, messaging apps, and instant messaging programs.

Unlike content shared on public platforms like Twitter and Facebook, private sharing is more difficult to track, which makes it easy for social media marketers to underestimate the influence of dark social on social media sharing.

Some of the most common channels for dark social traffic include messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and WhatsApp, as well as email (which doesn't share referrers to protect users' privacy), native mobile apps like Facebook and Instagram, and secure browsing (where referrers aren't passed on when clicking from HTTPS to HTTP).

In essence, dark social refers to web traffic that cannot be attributed to a specific source, such as a social network or a Google search. Typically, referral traffic is identified by "tags" attached to the link when it's shared.

Common Dark Social Channel Platforms:

- Instant Messangers

- Email

- Text

- Messanger within Apps

Here are five reasons why dark social is crucial:

1. Dark social is ubiquitous In the last year and a half, a majority of clickbacks to dark social shares have come from mobile devices. Desktops make up only 38 percent of clickbacks on dark social shares. This indicates that dark social is an integral part of people's digital behavior, regardless of the device.

2. Dark social has a significant impact on traffic Dark social shares accounted for 84 percent of on-site shares globally in the past year and a half, compared to Facebook's mobile shares that accounted for only 11 percent of site-originated mobile shares. Dark social also generated seven times the number of site-originated mobile shares and more than three times the number of mobile clickbacks than Facebook.

3. Dark social presents a unique marketing opportunity Dark social data provides detailed insights into consumers' genuine interests, offering businesses a targeted audience of connections to tap into.

4. Dark social attracts diverse demographics RadiumOne's research shows that 46 percent of consumers aged 55 and above share content exclusively through dark social, while only 19 percent of those aged 16 to 34 do the same. Therefore, businesses targeting the older age group may benefit more from a dark social strategy.

5. Dark social sharing is prevalent across industries In many sectors such as personal finance, food and drink, travel, and executive search, more than 70 percent of social sharing occurs through dark social. Therefore, companies in these sectors must pay close attention to this form of sharing to ensure maximum reach.