What is 'dark social' media marketing?
Summary:
What is dark social?
Why is dark social media marketing important?
4 ways to measure dark social
FAQs about dark social media marketing
Do not fear the dark side.
Find out where, why, and how to reach new audiences with dark social media marketing.
Fear not; dark social is unlike the notorious "dark web" trying to lure you into evil. Dark social is the oldest social network in action: private, untraceable human-to-human communication. Furthermore, it accounts for up to 95% of your web traffic.
With the right tools and knowledge, you can track dark social mentions and shares to find where people talk about your brand, what they say, and how to reach new audiences.
What is dark social?
Dark social is sharing content or mentioning brands on private social media channels, including through direct messaging, email, private groups, and more. Dark social media, or dark traffic, is not easily tracked by traditional analytics tools. The term "dark social" was invented in 2012 by Alexis Madrigal, former editor of The Atlantic.
Common examples of dark social are:
Private messaging apps (e.g. WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, text messages)
Emails
Private messages inside native apps (e.g. Facebook Messenger, Instagram)
Web traffic sources, if someone clicks a link to your website from an unsecured page. (Although HTTPS -> HTTP referral sources are sometimes included.)
Private social media channels, like closed Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups, private subreddits, or personal profile content shared only with friends/followers.
Word of mouth, including podcast mentions, in-person conversations, or you and your friend on the phone.
Dark social sources often cannot be measured because they are private, like an email, or because analytics software cannot accurately categorise them — either because the source is hidden or the link does not have UTM parameters.
Why is dark social media marketing so important?
1. Everyone uses dark social
It does not matter if your customers use dark social platforms; it matters which ones.
For example, have you sent an email today?
Have you sent a text?
Have you talked on the phone?
Browsed a Facebook Group?
Then you are on dark social at multiple points during the day — just like everyone else.
Even clicking a link in WhatsApp is dark social, and it is the third most popular social media network in the world, ahead of Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Source: Hootsuite's Digital Trends report
2. Dark social impacts your analytics
Past studies estimated that dark social accounted for 84% of all referral traffic. What about in 2023? No one knows how much web traffic or social media mentions come from dark social because it is dark social. That is the whole point.
Nevertheless, analytics expert Steve Lamar recently experimented to see what Google Analytics classifies as dark social. The results, first published on SparkToro, are pretty surprising.
Steve created 16 new subdomains and directed each traffic source to a matching page name (e.g. "website.com/facebook-messenger" for Facebook Messenger) to track where referrals came from, even if Google Analytics could not tell.
His experiment found that, in 2023, dark social accounts for:
100% of TikTok profile clicks.
100% of clicks from private messaging apps (Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Mastodon) but only 75% of clicks from Facebook Messenger.
A mixed bag elsewhere, with Instagram passing through accurate attribution data only 30% of the time, LinkedIn 14%, and Pinterest 12%.
Source: SparkToro/Really Good Data
How much of your traffic is coming from dark social? Your direct traffic in Google Analytics is a reasonable estimate. Find yours under Acquisition -> Traffic acquisition.
Sure, some direct visitors are typing www.yourcompany.com into their browser. Nevertheless, it is also where Google puts anything it cannot attribute anywhere else, a.k.a. dark social.
Source: Google Analytics
You need to know your social media analytics numbers to discover where that direct traffic came from. Social media analytics and link-in bio tools will help you track link clicks across your social channels.
3. Dark social reaches new audiences
Every day, there is a new study about Gen Z scrolling social media behind their closed, sleeping eyelids. 54% of Gen Zers spend four or more hours daily on social media compared to only 28% of all American adults.
Great news for social media marketers, but what if your target audience is not Gen Z? Social media usage among older adults is rising. However, less than half of people 65+ use traditional social media, and the ones who do are there to keep in touch with friends and family, not brands.
Source: GWI
Regarding social selling, 43% of Gen Z ranks influencer recommendations as highly relevant to their decision-making process, whereas only 18% of Gen X and 9% of Boomers say the same.
Understanding your audience's generational differences goes a long way toward discovering where they spend time, both online and offline, and how to reach them on their favourite dark social channels, such as in-person events or private groups.
4. Dark social provides valuable information
Dark social is all about connection. People join private Facebook Groups or forums to meet and talk with other like-minded people—a lot of that talk centres around advice.
Reddit is not strictly a dark social channel (only private subreddits are), but it shows the specific types of questions people ask in niche forums like this.
In an era when you can watch 700 review videos for a product on YouTube, we still turn to people we consider experts — friends, family, or niche communities — for purchasing advice.
For 89% of buyers, personal referrals and recommendations are still their most trusted source.
Dark Social helps you find these powerful sources. Continuing the photography example above, a camera store may discover a local enthusiasts' group and partner with them to run sponsored events or info sessions. Alternatively, learn new questions buyers have about products and use that to revise their product descriptions or FAQ pages.
Knowing what people discuss in dark social channels can inspire a goldmine of new social media content.
But how do you measure dark social content?
4 ways to measure dark social media marketing
1. Use a URL shortener
Besides tidying your social posts, shortening links also lets you add tracking information for accurate analytics measurement. Bitly is one such shortener.
2. Set up UTMs and referral links
A ‘UTM link’ is simply a URL with tracking parameters, exactly like the above example from our Ow.ly link shortener. You don’t need software to make these links. Anyone can create UTMs and referral links if you format them correctly.
Each item beginning with “utm_” is a UTM tracking parameter. Common ones include:
Source (Facebook, Instagram, email)
Medium (organic social, paid social, website)
Term (keyword used or differentiate between A/B tests)
Content (the type of content, like a video, photo)
3. Create a social listening strategy
Social listening tools like Hootsuite can’t track 100% of dark social activities, like text messages, but they can help attribute traffic and ROI as accurately as possible. Plus, social listening mines the web for conversations you wouldn’t otherwise know about.
4. Make sharing easy
Do you have sharing buttons on your blog articles for more than Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest? Try adding email or WhatsApp sharing buttons with — you guessed it — UTM parameters. For anyone clicking those links, you’ll know where they came from and which article they read.
Final thoughts on dark social and data
People are less willing than ever to part with personal data. Research from Adobe found 73% of people worry brands use their personal data only to benefit themselves, not to provide better customer experiences. A recent Cisco survey shows 89% of consumers care about and want control of their data, and 44% of those have switched companies due to disagreeing with data sharing and privacy policies.
With more people concerned about privacy and with 80% of countries having current or draft privacy law legislation, it’s important to have a defined data policy.
FAQs about dark social
What is an example of dark social?
Common dark social examples are private messages sent on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, text messaging, emails, or private social networks such as Facebook Groups, Discord servers, or forums.
What are dark social strategies?
Dark social media strategies include
using private social networks in your marketing, including brand-owned closed communities,
encouraging employee advocacy and
setting up UTM parameters to accurately track dark social referral traffic.
What are dark posts?
Dark social posts are content posted or shared through dark social media, which are private channels like texts, emails, or private messages. Dark posts can also refer to paid social media ads that are not displayed on a brand's organic profile and are shown only to specific target audiences.
What is dark social web traffic?
Dark social web traffic is any visit to your website that analytics software cannot accurately determine the source of, including traffic redirected from a secure (HTTPS) website to a non-secure (HTTP) URL. This is often labelled as "direct" referral traffic in Google Analytics and other platforms.