You know the meme, viral video, or inside joke you texted to your friend? There’s actually a name for this phenomenon: dark social.

Messaging apps are now bigger than social networks — which means more people are sharing content through private channels including messaging apps, text messages, and emails. Sharing content privately is referred to as “dark” social — dark being the challenge that marketers face trying to measure the ROI and traffic of these private messages.

With the rise of apps like WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger and WeChat, social networking is increasingly adopting a privacy-focused vision. Not to mention, these four messaging apps currently have a higher active user count compared to social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat,and LinkedIn. 

In this article, we’ll cover the importance of dark social and how your brand can tap into this growing trend.

The Importance of Measuring Dark Social Shares

84% of consumers’ outbound sharing from publishers’ and marketers’ websites now takes place through dark social channels, so neglecting to measure dark social is not an option anymore. On top of that, there are a couple benefits of dark social content:

• Recommendation And Advocacy: Because people often use dark social to interact with those closest to them, it lets your customers share their individual opinions. Consumers often share products, messages, and posts with their like-minded peers with similar tastes.

• Increased Open Rate: Because content shared through dark social media often comes from a trusted friend, family member, or associate, consumers are more likely to view a link or post that they receive through a private message.

Dark Social Gives Consumers a Say

Because dark social shows what people share with their closest friends and families, it gives brands insights into their audience’s genuine interest. More than that, brands can leverage dark social to give consumers a say in important business decisions.

Take Adidas, who changed the face of influencer marketing with the launch of Tango Squads — communities of hyper-connected football obsessives operating on direct messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. 

The key to Tango Squads’ success? Each squad is managed by an Adidas in-house team member, who shares exclusive content and new products with the group before they are unveiled on Adidas’ Twitter or Facebook channels. With an aim to build the “next bunch of football influencers,” Adidas’ Tango Squads are comprised of socially savvy 16-19-year-old football content creators in 15 cities worldwide.

More and more brands are jumping on the bandwagon to leverage dark social. Recently, coffee giant Starbucks has been exploring the use of private accounts and private groups on social media. Their aim is to encourage deeper conversations and involve consumers in decisions pertaining to product development and testing.

How Can Brands Measure Dark Social Sharing?

This private sharing is harder to track than content shared on public platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, so what can brands and marketers do?

Besides creating branded communities, as forward-thinking brands like Adidas and Starbucks have already done, there are a few specific ways brands can measure their dark social traffic:

• Use A Dedicated Dark Social Tracking Software Platform: Even in Google Analytics, dark social traffic may get incorrectly categorized as direct traffic. There are many tools that can help with dark social tracking, including Get Social, which currently tracks 100 million private and dark social shares each month. Even better, this platform works directly with Google to help marketers measure, promote, and amplify their best content.

• Add Direct Share Buttons With UTM Codes: For instance, you can add Facebook Messenger, Slack, and SMS share buttons to your organic website content such as blog posts. Attaching a unique UTM code to each of the buttons will allow you to track clicks from each private share.

• Put A Copy & Paste Button At The Bottom Of Your Content: When consumers hit the “Copy” button, it doesn’t copy the actual URL to a users’ clipboard — it copies a UTM URL that you preloaded into the bar. That way, when consumers share the link with their friends, you’ll be able to track where the click came from. Cool, right?

What Are You Waiting For? Start Tracking!

There may be a decline in traditional social shares on social media, but this doesn’t mean people aren’t sharing content — it means they’re sharing content differently. In order to get through to consumers, brands should adopt an organic relationship marketing approach that focuses on belonging instead of buying consumer loyalty.