WHAT IS DARK SOCIAL MEDIA?
“Dark social” is a term that collectively refers to the traffic generated by links that are copied & pasted, and then shared on private communication channels such as Facebook Messenger, text messages, and emails. No, dark social is not evil, and it will almost certainly not cause your business to fail, but understanding it, and learning how to capture some of that lost data can help your business achieve greater results, and give you an edge over your competition.
WHY IS DARK SOCIAL A PROBLEM?
Traditionally, marketers have only had to track two form of website traffic. The first is referenced traffic, which happens when you click on an ad or link, and it directs either to a specific page on a website or the homepage itself. The second occurs when you physically type the URL into the search bar, this traffic is directed into the folder called “direct” traffic. Since analytics is able to differentiate between the two, it splits all of the data into either “Direct” or “Referenced” folders, which marketers then analyze to make adjustments and improvements to their campaigns.
In the past, this has worked without a problem. Unfortunately, the development of dark channels has caused most of this data to be mislabeled and lost. In fact, according to two different studies by RadiumOne and Tynt – both social media engagement firms – found that 70% of all sharing activity is done on dark social channels, with 36% of it happening on mobile devices.
SO WHERE DOES THE DATA GO?
Since links shared through dark channels contain no reference data, your analytics considers the visit to your site as “direct” traffic. Now when you go to review your marketing campaign data, you may notice that a lot of the traffic to your website is from “direct” traffic, when in actuality, a lot of those people came to your site after receiving a shared link from their friend. Identifying the most effective social media channel becomes very difficult, and any adjustments to your strategy is based on only a portion of the data.
THEN HOW DO YOU TRACK DARK SOCIAL SHARES?
Luckily, dark social data is not entirely lost, it’s simply hidden amongst the rest of your direct traffic, so there are a few ways to help differentiate between shares occurring on dark social channels and true direct traffic.
TIP 1: CREATE SHORT LINKS
The first, and maybe most effective way to shed some light on dark social sharing is by using short links. There are a variety of short link providers, Bit.ly and Po.st are two of the most popular, but for marketers already using/familiar with Hootsuite or Google analytics can streamline their efforts by using Ow.ly or goo.gl. The short links provided by these company contain special code that allow their analytics software to track the number of clicks each short link is receiving, which social networks the clicks are happening on, and geographic location that the clicking is happening. Most of these short link providers will provide the same information, so choosing a service comes down to preference.
TIP 2: CREATE SHARE BUTTONS
Your second option is adding share buttons to your website. By adding visible, non-obtrusive share buttons, you are increasing the odds that a visitors of your website will forgo the copy and pasting of your link, and share your content directly through your share buttons, which will allow you to track the links. Adding share buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are a great start, but the buttons you really want on your website are share buttons for Text messages and emails. Since 36% of dark social sharing is occurring on mobile devices it’s important to make sharing your content as mobile friendly as possible.
TIP 3: GOOGLE ANALYTICS ADVANCED FEATURES
Your last option is using advanced features within Google Analytics to separate your direct traffic into condition-based subgroups. This option is definitely the most user intensive and may take a certain amount of computer nerdiness to pull of properly, but it certainly is not beyond your abilities. What you will be doing it setting conditions on all of the direct traffic coming to your website, so when a visitor meets your set of specific conditions, their visit is placed in the corresponding sub-folder. This can be accomplished by creating a segment with two conditions.
The first is excluding all direct traffic coming to your homepage. Since dark traffic is being linked to a specific page/article, you don’t need to include the people actually typing in your URL to your homepage. Knowing this, the second condition is to include all direct traffic to your website not going to your homepage. This may sound complicated but here is a link with the step-by-step instructions you will need.
Dark social media CAN be your marketing friend!