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 d.edmundson-bird@mmu.ac.uk