What is The Difference Between Dark Social & Dark Posts?

What Is the Difference Between Dark Social and Dark Posts?

So…what is the difference between dark social and a dark post?

In my work as a product specialist, I get this question all the time. The confusion is understandable due to the similar nomenclature, but never fear–I’m here to help!

It’s really an apples-to-oranges comparison. While dark posts (also known as unpublished posts) are ad objects, undoubtedly inside the traditional umbrella of social media, Dark Social has nothing to do with ads and doesn’t necessarily have to do with “traditional” social media at all.

Dark/Unpublished Posts

Let’s start with dark/unpublished posts. These posts are ad objects that appear in consumer timelines, but do not exist on the company’s social page. They appear as normal-looking posts, but have calls to action like “Learn More,” “Shop Now,” or “Like Page.” If you are reading this article, you have either purchased or seen these ads a million times.

But What About Dark Social?

Dark Social is an entirely different beast: it has nothing to do with ads. It refers simply to the private sharing of links via mediums that don’t pass a referrer in traditional web analytics platforms, such as email, Slack, Text, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat.

Slack

Facebook Messenger

Text

When we break down the term Dark Social, “Dark” relates to the fact that these conversions are often falsely attributed to direct traffic in your web analytics tool. The “social” component comes from the fact that this is a social interaction of two or more people. If it makes it easier, just think “private sharing.” 

Dark Social data is absolutely critical, not just for social teams, but for your marketing organization as a whole. In fact, you should be viewing Dark Social as its own marketing channel, one that contains a goldmine of data. Right now, around 80% of all sharing is dark. 80%!!! These private shares represent consumers who are typically at the bottom of the marketing funnel and/or huge fans and advocates of your brand. These are people sharing links to your products so that their friends, families, and co-workers will buy them, read your articles, and share your quizzes to help determine “Which Wildlife Excursion Should You Try In Manitoba?” (looking at you, Buzzfeed).

These interactions are occurring all the time, and you are missing the chance to optimize your content for goal completions that matter to your business. You are missing a nuanced perspective on the social activity sitting in your direct traffic bucket. Using this data, you can learn which products, content, or other web pages resonate most with your audience, so you can transform your social, email, and ad campaigns around the topics people likely to buy and engage deeply with your brand care most about.

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Dark Social Media: What it is and Why Marketers Should Care

The term “dark social” was first created by Alexis C. Madrigal in a 2012 article written for The Atlantic. Which in digital life means 14 years ago and therefore ahead of his time.  His instincts were that, to a large extent, we share links with each other using IM, email, and forums and that when this happens and the link is clicked, it’s invisible to most analytics programs and ends up falling into the “direct” or “typed/bookmarked” traffic.

Image Credit: The American Genius - AGBeat.com

This traffic, the “dark traffic”, is essentially misdiagnosed and the analyst misses a big piece of truly what happens during a user’s journey to their digital frontier.

Fast forward to 2014.  Again, the digital landscape has changed and three important trends are worth noting to provide more context.

1. Mobile usage and app usage have increased significantly.
2. Homepage traffic in most cases is on the decline as that volume shifts to users coming in the side door.
3. There are so many more ways to be social including new applications and new social networks.

All adding complexity to the dark social conundrum.  To what extent?

According to Chartbeat, dark social accounts for about one-third of external traffic to sites (these are sites across their network).  They broke the data down further and the number increased when looking at mobile-only traffic, where 50% of traffic lacked a referrer.  In a report by radiumone on the subject, they revealed that dark social accounts for more than 69% of all online social sharing.  In addition, a large portion of those who share, about one-third, only share using dark social.

If the sheer mystery of it all doesn’t make you care, then what should make you care are the letters R, O, and I.  Because essentially, the contribution of social activity in a digital environment that is leading to discovery, exploration, and purchase of products and services isn’t captured correctly and therefore not getting its rightful credit with respect to ROI.

What to do About Dark Social Referrals - How to get credit where credit is due

1. Be cognizant that this exists and that standard tracking alone isn’t likely to provide a complete picture without addressing dark social
2. Web patterns including social, apps, mobile are going to change again so do your research and invest in tools that do a better-than-average job tracking your efforts and measure results
3. Write your congressperson.  Okay, no don’t do that!  But do be the voice that advocates for uncovering dark social sources, it will be important to address and implement accordingly.

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