The Dark Social!(The future of social media)

Nik Badminton Regional Director, North America Freelancer.come: nik@freelancer.com t: @freelancer

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What is going on?

Dark Social!The social sharing of content that occurs outside of what can be measured by Web analytics programs.

Most web and brand analytics staffers don’t have a clue how to track this except by saying that it’s from ‘Unknown’.

The ROI of our social is…ummm…ahhhh…

“Dark Social is nearly 70% of sharing activity”!!

RadiumOne

Source: http://marketingland.com/dark-social-still-near-70-percent-109796

“36% of dark social sharing happens on mobile devices.”!!

RadiumOne

Source: http://marketingland.com/dark-social-still-near-70-percent-109796

“Entertainment, careers, travel, science and education all topping the 80% dark social mark.”!!

RadiumOne

Source: http://marketingland.com/dark-social-still-near-70-percent-109796

“The parties are too pre-occupied with Facebook and Twitter, which are relatively ineffective.”!!

Marketing Magazine!(on the UK General Election)

Source: http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/article/1345954/political-parties-lose-voters-sharing-dark-social

But I thought you all loved being social?

“One half is stupid, and the other half is stupid. I can confirm that. !!

We put more online, and on Facebook, than any other country.”

John Adams!Former Chief of CSIS

I want to share in private and I don’t want people to know

what I am doing online.

"DuckDuckGo has had a big surge in popularity post the Snowden and NSA scandal as people are interested in searching online without being tracked. Publishers that get featured in that search engine still show up as direct traffic and it is not social."!!

Andrew Montalenti, CTO at parse.ly

Source: https://www.journalism.co.uk/news/-dark-social-and-other-mysterious-analytics/s2/a554142/

But, we’re OK. Right?

…and brands are being hijacked

Source: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/247198/social-spam-plagues-social-networks.html

"We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years.” !

Dick Costolo, CEO @Twitter

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/4/7982099/twitter-ceo-sent-memo-taking-personal-responsibility-for-the

“Researchers estimate that the market for fake Twitter followers was worth between $40 million and $360 million in 2013, and that the market for Facebook spam was worth $87 million to $390 million.”!

www.newrepublic.com

Today, social is a place where we can’t trust that anyone is

being truly authentic.

“On social, some brand conversations are entirely driven by spam.”!

Networked Insights

Source: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/247198/social-spam-plagues-social-networks.html

“Super spammy brands include Visa (81%), MasterCard (76%), and American Eagle Outfitters (73%).”!

Networked Insights

Source: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/247198/social-spam-plagues-social-networks.html

Fewer businesses are wanting to play the big social networks’

games to speak with the communities they have built.

The Hijack of Paid, Owned and

Earned Media.

Paid, owned, earned media was ‘convergent media’

Paid!Media

Earned!Media

Owned!Media

Now. it’s panicked…

Paid!Media

Earned!Media

Owned!Media

Now. it’s panicked…

Paid!Media

Earned!Media

Owned!Media

“S#$t, we are not getting the reach we

projected. Pile some more dollars into promoting our

social efforts.”

I predict that social is going to get darker, and

that is a HUGE opportunity for brands.

There will be a bias towards content, cultivation and tracking

Paid!Media

Earned!MediaOwned!

Media

This fundamentally affects your marketing team and you need content creators, social cultivators and growth hackers to help boost your brand

…and experts back up this thinking.

“Stop making Facebook the centre of your relationship marketing efforts…If you have to choose between adding a subscriber to you email list or gaining a new Facebook fan, go for email every time.”!

Forrester, 2015

“Your emails get delivered more than 90% of the time, while your Facebook posts get delivered 2% of the time — and no one’s looking over your should telling you what you can and can’t say in your emails.”!

Forrester, 2015

Take Control.

Email!Messaging apps!

SMS

It’s a step back towards great content marketing and owning your

relationships.

But, how can I track all the dark things?

Hook, bait, and listen.

Source: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/04/dark-social-activity/

HOOK: Communicate!Build a contact database and respectfully communicate with them often. Include them in the story of your brand and ask the to participate. !BAIT: Content!You need to build a content production and syndication factory in your marketing function. !LISTEN: Syndication!The more places your content is, the more people will see it and visit your site.

Source: http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/04/dark-social-activity/

Short URLs!!Use a link-shortening tool to track all branded content you share publicly. !Each time someone copies the shortened URL and shares it privately, you can accurately measure its reach. !bit.ly is particularly good at this kind of tracking.

Source: http://www.tynt.com/product_copypaste#axzz3ZDNsJGDI

Auto-adding URLs to content being shared!!Use a plugin that automatically adds your URL to the copied content a visitor copies (into documents, social, posts, blogs etc.) !Tynt Copy&Paste is a great little tool for this:

Address Bar Tracking - GetSocial.io

Source: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/technology-data/2015-03-27/5-tools-track-dark-social-sharing

1. Paste a snippet of code into your HTML <head> section:

2. Install the ‘Address bar Tracking’ app to your site:

Google Analytics - Dark Social Segment

Source: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/technology-data/2015-03-27/5-tools-track-dark-social-sharing

Google analytics allows its users to create advanced segments. !This feature enables specific filtering of your traffic according to a defined criteria. Identify and track all visitors who (1) came to your website through direct traffic and (2) didn’t go through the homepage.

Listening & ‘Narrative Insight’!!Not all dark social activity can be identified. You still need to go out and see what people are saying about your brand. !In analytics I call this ‘narrative insight’. !Google search, Google Alerts, DuckDuckGo, Bing, Hootsuite, Mention, radian6, Sysomos, Trackur, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr etc.

Dark Social is not just about campaigns, it’s about your

social operations.

Not getting a grip on Dark Social will lead to eroded

social budgets.

Help!

Over 15.5m freelancers globally that are ready to help solve some of these

business challenges.

Social tracking software installation Listening ‘Normal’ social media activities SEO Adwords Video production inc. animation Mobile site development Software development Website build ….and over 850 more skills

You could even build a new platform as well. In the early days Whatsapp found one of their founders in our freelancer user base.

Social: http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/02/19/exclusive-inside-story-how-jan-koum-built-whatsapp-into-facebooks-new-19-billion-baby/

Video…

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Slides at http://www.slideshare.net/nikolasbadminton