Dark Social: The Hidden Analytics that Drive 80% of Social Media Conversions

Dark social has become a buzzworthy term in social media marketing, and for good reason. Most businesses and marketers spend hours analysing social sharing stats in Google Analytics but are still oblivious to 80% of their social results.

That’s a lot of engagement happening in the shadows. So, what exactly is dark social, and how can you leverage it to improve your social media engagement and increase traffic? Read on to find out ways to track and leverage dark social for business success.

Understanding Dark Social

In lead generation, you provide relevant information to users to encourage them to purchase a product or service. According to Forbes, the more content a lead consumes, the more likely they are to become your customer.

However, you don’t always provide the content that leads to conversions; they receive it through messaging apps or email platforms. Dark social refers to social media sharing that analytics cannot track.

For instance, if a social media follower shares a link to your products via Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or email, you cannot track the analytics. Instead, their efforts will show up in the direct traffic analytics when they act on the information shared.

The Hidden Impact on Your Business

Traditionally, people used to share social media content through retweets on Twitter or using the Facebook share button. However, social media users are moving to private messaging apps to share content.

While the conversations in private messaging apps are encrypted and you cannot track the data, you can feel the impact on your business. People are likely to share links to content or products they love when offering recommendations to close friends and family members.

That makes dark social shares targeted like Google ads and often leads to higher conversions since the content is reaching individuals who have some level of trust with the sender. Dark social builds authentic word-of-mouth marketing for your business, which boosts sales.

Picture this: someone finds a social media post talking about body cream for removing dark spots, remembers their friend needed the same cream, and shares the link. Since it is a personalised recommendation, the recipient is more likely to buy the product.

Tracking Dark Social Traffic

If a business doesn’t have effective dark social tracking, they miss out on important analytics on how conversions happen. While tracking dark social isn’t straightforward, you can gain insights to help you understand how it works and its impact on your business. Some of the tactics to help you track dark social activity include:

Google Analytics: The easiest way to track dark social traffic is to create a segment in Google Analytics and find out if traffic is attributed to the wrong source. Use business impact metrics to determine the traffic earned from different sources during lead generation. When you analyse your direct traffic and filter out non-dark social traffic, you can zero in on untracked conversions.

Use trackable links: If you want to track where your content is shared, you can use Urchin tracking module(UTM) codes, which are snippets of texts added to the end of a URL and link shorteners. With trackable links, you can determine how your audience shares the content and gain better insights into their behaviours.

Use dark social tracking tools: You can use dark social tracking tools like GetSocial and Po.st to get insights into social sharing. For instance, GetSocial encourages social sharing for readers but also sends you alerts via email on the share rates and social traffic. You will get valuable insights on previously invisible data points.

Link Building Through Dark Social

Link building is crucial in any marketing strategy, but dark social presents unique opportunities for optimising link building to drive traffic.

For instance, when social media users share your content through private messaging apps, it promotes link-building in platforms that you wouldn’t reach through public channels. Besides, links shared through dark social channels are trusted and likely to lead to real engagement.

If you want to optimise your link-building strategy for dark social, you can get help from seeders.com to increase clicks, conversions and engagement.

When you create shareable content and provide useful information, such as insightful blog posts and how-to guides, users can easily pass it along to friends. If you want to shine on social media and encourage content sharing, you should focus on publishing memorable content that compels your followers to share privately.

Dark Social Optimization Strategies

You don’t need to overhaul your social media strategy to optimise for dark social. But, you need to shift your focus to get the most out of your content. Some of the strategies to optimise dark social traffic include:

Create shareable content: Your audience will only share valuable content. If you want to promote dark social traffic, create high-quality shareable content like how-to guides, short videos, articles and interactive elements. When your content is educative, your followers will feel compelled to pass it along.

Implement trackable sharing buttons: Dark social is untraceable, but you can still guide users towards trackable sharing options. For instance, if you implement Messenger, WhatsApp or email sharing buttons on your socials, the links have built-in tracking to help you gather relevant analytics.

Create a social media community: You can create private social media groups or chat-based forums where people can communicate and share content. These groups provide an environment for sharing content and also help you gain insights into your audience engagement.

Technical Implementation

If you want to track dark social traffic and conversions effectively, you can leverage technical tools. Some of the effective tools for social tracking include:

GetSocial: It tracks how your content is shared on various social networks.
Po.st: It tracks copy-paste shares and social shares through private messaging channels.
AddThis: Offers insights into the content users share.

Conclusion

Dark social media provides valuable traffic for your business, and understanding how it works can help you grow your business revenue. When you track hidden shares and optimise content for private sharing, you can drive conversions and reach new audiences.