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Dark Social &You Health Marketers
David Edmundson-Bird
Principal Lecturer in Digital Marketing & Enterprise
Manchester Metropolitan University
My Agenda• Who am I?• What is Dark Social?
Who am I?• Principal Lecturer in Digital Marketing & Enterprise• Programme Leader• MMC MSc Digital Marketing (PT)• MSc Digital Marketing Comms (FT)
• Original Founder of Agency Life• Opened Manchester’s 2nd web design agency in 1995• Chief Learning Architect at Academee.com• Background was in AI
What is Dark Social?
What it is not
What it is not• It’s not the same as the ‘Dark Web’• It’s also:• Not very sexy• Not very modern• Not all that new• Not all that clever
• But Dark Social becomes very important with the rise of a whole new wave of things
So come on - what is Dark Social?• It is simply:• ‘Social Sharing’ of links that cannot be tracked
• Dark Social describes the phenomenon where you cannot identify the source of traffic to an asset in your digital realm with your analytical software
How the Internet works - a reminder• I know you all know that:• Pages on web sites are connected by links• People who build pages often put links to other pages• I can see who links to my pages• If someone clicks on one of those links, my analytics software
lets me know where they came from and to where that link took them
Social Sharing• People like to share links with each other in social media
environment• When people share within ‘Open Social’ (Twitter, LinkedIn’s web
site, Facebook’s web site), my analytics software lets me know where they came from and to where that link took them• As more people share a link, and more people arrive through the
link, I can see what (and who) is sending them
Dark Social• Let’s see that definition again
• Dark Social describes the phenomenon where you cannot identify the source of traffic to an asset in your digital realm with your analytical software
SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE IS SENDING ME TRAFFIC AND I DON’T KNOW WHO IT IS OR WHERE THEY ARE
Who are the Dark Social referrers?• Messaging apps• WhatsApp, SnapChat, WeChat, Signal
• Native mobile apps• Facebook, Instagram for example
• HTTPS -> HTTP referrers• HTTPS blog post link – won’t show up in your analytics
• And get this:• Email and SMS
The Magnitude of the Problem• Radium One 2016 “The Dark Side of Mobile Sharing”• 84% of content sharing takes place on Dark Social channels• 9% on Facebook, 7% on ALL other Open Social
• 62% of clicks in Dark Social are on mobile• This is consistent globally
Can you detect it?• You can’t determine the referrer but there are things to look for
Look for direct traffic into deep links• Direct traffic into deep links that is
new session• Ask this – 1st time to site? Yet
went straight to a specific deep link?
• Most analysts assume a 1st session direct traffic into a deep link is coming from a Dark Social share
• Big %age new sessions are a good indicator
Should I worry about it?• Dark social shares are deeply personal• They are usually one-to-one• They may be sent by highly trusted influencers (friends, family)• They may be sent to someone close to conversion or way down the
customer decision process• “Here’s that thing you were asking about about last night”
What can you do about it?• Dark Social links you don’t control aren’t going to change their
nature any time soon
Tricks (1)• Content-attribution not platform-attribution focus• Don’t worry about where it came from – concentrate on
knowing what it is that got shared• Create URL-shortened links for every piece of content• Use a paid-for vanity URL shortening service
• If you share links into different dark platforms (and you need to know about the attribution) then create short URLs for each link for each platform• Especially for email marketing
How does that trick work?• Take your standard long URL• http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/taught/
2017/14766/
How does that trick work?• Use something like Enterprise bit.ly (with a vanity URL for added
trust)
How does that trick work?• Seed each platform-specific shortened URL out into each specific
Dark Social channel• Use link URL shortener analytics to discover history of link
performance
Tricks (2)• Create specific social-sharing buttons with UTM (Urchin Tracking
Mode) parameters for each platform including the Dark Social platforms• Analytics recognizes the tag added to
the URL and highlights it as such
Tricks (3)• Sudden direct traffic to a deep link?• Check out the social sentiment• Anything stand out?
Problems with the Tricks• You don’t know when the sharing jumps platform• But you have to ask – does that matter?
• Sometimes UTMs get stripped out• Sentiment might not indicate a sudden rise in direct traffic
To sum up• Most social sharing is dark• The focus should be on creating content that gets shared rather
worrying about where traffic comes from• You can check to see how much traffic is probably dark• Dark Social shares may be really important• You can use URL shortening services to manage attribution• You can use social share buttons with UTMs• They don’t always work – it may not always matter
Find me anywhere• As David Edmundson-Bird on the first 42 pages of Google• As @groovegenerator on any social platform• As David Edmundson-Bird on LinkedIn• On [email protected]