Dark Social Sharing: Factors Shaping Digital Marketing

‘Dark social sharing’ refers to content that is privately distributed by users through channels like messaging apps, emails and file transfers instead of public social media platforms. This type of sharing is now a significant portion of overall social media traffic, prompting new strategies for digital marketers in the coming year.

What is Dark Social Sharing?

Traditional social networks only measure sharing that occurs publicly within their own platforms. However, extensive content sharing also happens privately through channels they cannot track. This ‘dark social’ sharing encompasses messaging app forwarding, comments shared over text messages and content emailed or transferred between users. Studies estimate dark social accounts for 30% to over 50% of all social media shares, representing a huge untapped distribution channel.

Importance for Marketers

Dark social sharing illustrates an important shift occurring within the digital marketing landscape. Previously, brands could target and optimize content based around public social media platforms. But as privacy concerns grow and messaging apps replace traditional networks for many users, significant portions of sharing and discussion have migrated beyond the view of marketers. This means brands must expand strategies beyond platforms to meet consumers where they actually discover and distribute content. Effectively engaging users in spaces like messaging apps and emails will require new creative approaches and measurement techniques.

New Marketing Strategies

To adapt, brands will explore new dark social strategies like creating shareable content in easy-to-forward formats. They’ll build relationships with influencers across messaging apps whose followers represent untapped audiences. Using proper email subject lines, brands will optimize email content for high ‘viral’ potential among recipients. This includes optimizing imagery and headlines that clearly convey a product’s value at a glance. Properpsychometric targeting and recommendation engines will also help brands deliver the most relevant content to individuals based on inferred interests .

All these techniques represent a shift toward privately distributed, peer-recommended marketing through optimized content that spreads naturally within dark networks.

In summary, the significant size of dark social media sharing indicates that brands can no longer rely solely on optimizing content for discovery on public networks. In 2023, marketers must explore innovative strategies for optimizing content that can also spread naturally .This requires new creative approaches, measurement techniques and optimization factors that account for the rise of dark distribution channels alongside traditional public platforms.