Dark Social: What You Need to Know

February 11, 2024 Lawrence

Dark social has significant implications for marketers, brands, and creators, as it represents a substantial portion of social traffic, often accounting for the most valuable interactions, such as product purchases and link clicks. Here’s what you need to know about it.

A significant portion of our social interactions occurs in a realm unseen and untracked: welcome to the world of Dark Social. Chances are, you’ve copied a link and shared it in your group chat a thousand and one times. Or a friend has asked for a restaurant recommendation, and you share a link with them.

That’s dark social.

Despite its ominous name, dark social is just a fancy way of referring to untrackable conversations in online spaces. And the ability to understand and harness it dark can provide valuable insights into what’s driving engagement, referrals, and what your audience wants out of your content.

In this article, we’ll dive into why dark social matters, exploring its impact on analytics and its value for everyone who creates on the Internet.

Dark social, a term coined by Alexis C. Madrigal in a 2012 article for The Atlantic, refers to the social sharing of content that occurs outside of what can be measured by web analytics.

This includes sharing links over private channels such as direct messaging, email, and SMS, which are not visible to the public, search engines, or marketers.

Alexis’ article shed light on the fact that a significant portion of social sharing was unaccounted for by traditional analytics, with 69 percent of The Atlantic's social referrals classified as “dark social” at that time. And since 2012, the skew of traffic that isn’t accurately measured has only increased as Internet users have become more privacy-conscious and moved to closed apps.

Alexis’ discovery showed the importance of the quality of content as its own thing, as well as the limitations of relying on and optimizing for social platforms alone.

Dark social encompasses a variety of communication methods that are not publicly visible or trackable by standard analytics tools. These include:

Private messaging apps: WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, and traditional text messages are prime examples where users share content with one another in a one-on-one or small group setting
Emails: Personal and professional email exchanges often contain links and recommendations that are shared privately
Private social networks: Facebook Groups, Discord servers, and forums where communities engage in more intimate conversations
Content platforms: While platforms