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By Andrew Ciccone | Published | No Comments
The term “dark social” is any sharing done peer to peer on the internet that websites cannot track. Dark Social is any form of online communication that is private or hidden from being tracked by Facebook Insights, Google Analytic, etc. Dark Social is not on public social networks such as Twitter or Facebook.
Dark Social accounts for more than 70% of all online (Radium One) activity. Simply said, dark social is data that does not identify its source or users.
The occurrence of dark social in the U.S. is less prevalent than it is globally. Americans are consumer crazy and are not as concerned about their privacy. Currently only 40% of all social referrals are tracked back to their sources. Europeans value their privacy to a greater, degree than Americans, in fact 75% of social referrals are dark in Europe. This makes it harder to determine where recommendations are coming from in Europe.
The nature of it being ‘dark’ makes it much harder for marketers to assess or measure visitors and where the traffic is coming from. Given that most of the traffic is dark, sentiment analysis is well suspect (the data is not reliable to summarize if sentiment is positive or negative).
People are much more likely to share on dark social channels compared to a shout-out on Twitter or Facebook where the crowd will mash, distort and disrupt the message. Dark Social channels are private and intimate conversations with like minded people.
Dark Social users are more than happy to buy on Dark Social. In fact, among younger users, there is something of an expectation that they should be able to purchase (Frictionless.Social, 2016).
Dark Social is where your customers live, they are ready to buy and covet the privacy of not being tracked. To learn more about dark social media or to discuss how HVPR can help your business contact us at 845.202.7087, visit our website or email us at [email protected].
Andrew Ciccone is director of Hudson Valley Public Relations. His firm specializes in content marketing. He holds a BS in Marketing from Syracuse University and a MA in Corporate Communications from Baruch College.
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