As social media fatigue takes hold and more worries about privacy hit consumers we see the social media landscape changing. A recent study has found that 59% of all content sharing activity occurs via ‘Dark Social’, a place with no formal social network beyond true word-of-mouth, IM, SMS and email. This is the way that social will go in the next 3 to 5 years: underground. This talk will help you understand this phenomenon, get an idea of where it is going and give you practical advice on how to identify it and integrate measurement into your social media measurement frameworks.

1. The Dark
Social!
(The future of social media)
Nik Badminton
Regional Director, North America
Freelancer.com
e: nik@freelancer.com
t: @freelancer
You are here

2. What is going on?

3. Dark Social!
The social sharing of
content that occurs outside
of what can be measured
by Web analytics programs.

4. Most web and brand
analytics staffers don’t have
a clue how to track this
except by saying that it’s
from ‘Unknown’.

6. The ROI of our social
is…ummm…ahhhh…

7. “Dark Social is nearly 70% of
sharing activity”!
!
RadiumOne
Source: http://marketingland.com/dark-social-still-near-70-percent-109796

8. “36% of dark social sharing
happens on mobile devices.”!
!
RadiumOne
Source: http://marketingland.com/dark-social-still-near-70-percent-109796

9. “Entertainment, careers, travel,
science and education all topping
the 80% dark social mark.”!
!
RadiumOne
Source: http://marketingland.com/dark-social-still-near-70-percent-109796

10. “The parties are too pre-occupied
with Facebook and Twitter, which
are relatively ineffective.”!
!
Marketing Magazine!
(on the UK General Election)
Source: http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1345954/political-parties-lose-voters-sharing-dark-social

11. But I thought you all loved
being social?

14. “One half is stupid, and
the other half is stupid. I
can confirm that. !
!
We put more online, and
on Facebook, than any
other country.”
John Adams!
Former Chief of CSIS

15. I want to share in private
and I don’t want people to know
what I am doing online.

17. "DuckDuckGo has had a big surge in popularity
post the Snowden and NSA scandal as people are
interested in searching online without being
tracked. Publishers that get featured in that search
engine still show up as direct traffic and it is not
social."!
!
Andrew Montalenti, CTO at parse.ly
Source: https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/-dark-social-and-other-mysterious-analytics/s2/a554142/

18. But, we’re OK. Right?

19. …and brands are being hijacked
Source: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/247198/social-spam-plagues-social-networks.html
"We suck at
dealing with
abuse and trolls
on the platform
and we've sucked
at it for years.”
!
Dick Costolo, CEO @Twitter
Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/4/7982099/twitter-ceo-sent-memo-taking-personal-responsibility-for-the

20. “Researchers estimate that the market for fake
Twitter followers was worth between $40 million
and $360 million in 2013, and that the market for
Facebook spam was worth $87 million to $390
million.”!
www.newrepublic.com

21. Today, social is a place where
we can’t trust that anyone is
being truly authentic.

22. “On social, some brand conversations
are entirely driven by spam.”!
Networked Insights
Source: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/247198/social-spam-plagues-social-networks.html

23. “Super spammy brands include Visa
(81%), MasterCard (76%), and
American Eagle Outfitters (73%).”!
Networked Insights
Source: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/247198/social-spam-plagues-social-networks.html

24. Fewer businesses are wanting
to play the big social networks’
games to speak with the
communities they have built.

25. The Hijack of
Paid, Owned and
Earned Media.

26. Paid, owned, earned media was ‘convergent media’
Paid!
Media
Earned!
Media
Owned!
Media

27. Now. it’s panicked…
Paid!
Media
Earned!
Media
Owned!
Media

28. Now. it’s panicked…
Paid!
Media
Earned!
Media
Owned!
Media
“S#$t, we are not
getting the reach we
projected. Pile some more
dollars into promoting our
social efforts.”

29. I predict that social is
going to get darker, and
that is a HUGE
opportunity for brands.

30. There will be a bias towards content, cultivation and tracking
Paid!
Media
Earned!
MediaOwned!
Media
This fundamentally affects your marketing team and you need content creators,
social cultivators and growth hackers to help boost your brand

31. …and experts back up
this thinking.

32. “Stop making Facebook the centre of your
relationship marketing efforts…If you have to
choose between adding a subscriber to you
email list or gaining a new Facebook fan, go
for email every time.”!
Forrester, 2015

33. “Your emails get delivered more than 90% of
the time, while your Facebook posts get
delivered 2% of the time — and no one’s
looking over your should telling you what you
can and can’t say in your emails.”!
Forrester, 2015

34. Take Control.

35. Email!
Messaging apps!
SMS

36. It’s a step back towards great content
marketing and owning your
relationships.

37. But, how can I track all the
dark things?

38. Hook, bait, and
listen.

39. Source: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/04/dark-social-activity/
HOOK: Communicate!
Build a contact database and respectfully
communicate with them often. Include them in the story
of your brand and ask the to participate.
!
BAIT: Content!
You need to build a content production and syndication
factory in your marketing function.
!
LISTEN: Syndication!
The more places your content is, the more people will
see it and visit your site.

40. Source: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/04/dark-social-activity/
Short URLs!
!
Use a link-shortening tool to track all branded content you share
publicly.
!
Each time someone copies the shortened URL and shares it
privately, you can accurately measure its reach.
!
bit.ly is particularly good at this kind of tracking.

41. Source: http://www.tynt.com/product_copypaste#axzz3ZDNsJGDI
Auto-adding URLs to content being shared!
!
Use a plugin that automatically adds your URL to the copied
content a visitor copies (into documents, social, posts, blogs etc.)
!
Tynt Copy&Paste is a great little tool for this:

42. Address Bar Tracking - GetSocial.io
Source: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/technology-data/2015-03-27/5-tools-track-dark-social-sharing
1. Paste a snippet of code into
your HTML <head> section:
2. Install the ‘Address bar
Tracking’ app to your site:

43. Google Analytics - Dark Social Segment
Source: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/technology-data/2015-03-27/5-tools-track-dark-social-sharing
Google analytics allows its users to create advanced segments.
!
This feature enables specific filtering of your traffic according to a
defined criteria. Identify and track all visitors who (1) came to your
website through direct traffic and (2) didn’t go through the
homepage.

44. Listening & ‘Narrative Insight’!
!
Not all dark social activity can be identified. You still need to go
out and see what people are saying about your brand.
!
In analytics I call this ‘narrative insight’.
!
Google search, Google Alerts, DuckDuckGo, Bing, Hootsuite,
Mention, radian6, Sysomos, Trackur, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr etc.

45. Dark Social is not just about
campaigns, it’s about your
social operations.

46. Not getting a grip on Dark
Social will lead to eroded
social budgets.

47. Help!

48. Over 15.5m freelancers globally that
are ready to help solve some of these
business challenges.

49. Social tracking software installation
Listening
‘Normal’ social media activities
SEO
Adwords
Video production inc. animation
Mobile site development
Software development
Website build
….and over 850 more skills

50. You could even build a new platform
as well. In the early days Whatsapp
found one of their founders in our
freelancer user base.
Social: http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-inside-story-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into-facebooks-new-19-billion-baby/

52. Video…

53. If you have questions, ideas or are interested in finding out
more about us the get in touch:
Slides at http://www.slideshare.net/nikolasbadminton