New Research Reveals ‘dark Social’ Channels

New research published by RadiumOne reveals that 74% of all online sharing activity in the UK takes place via ‘dark social’ channels, compared to just 19% via Facebook and 7% on all other social channels combined. 

Additional to this, 36% of dark social sharing globally now takes place across mobile devices, forums or instant message, rather than sharing the content via social networks.

Dark social refers to any inbound web traffic coming from sources that web analytics are unable to track, occurring typically when online content is shared by copying a URL and pasting it into emails, forums or instant messages.

Team Sky is one brand beginning to engage with its fans outside of its own earned media channels, looking specifically at ways to reach dark social web traffic.

In an interview with Marketing Week, Malph Minns, head of partnerships at Team Sky said that the sports industry has to look for new ways to develop its audience for sponsors in order to grow commercial revenues.

The study, entitled ‘The Light and Dark of Social Sharing – harnessing the power of consumer connections’, is the first to provide a complete picture of online data sharing habits across all social networks and other messaging platforms in five key markets including the UK, North America, Europe, Australia  and France. 

The research findings illustrate how much of their online audience advertisers and publishers are overlooking by limiting their social focus and marketing investment to activities that take place on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Rupert Staines, managing director, Europe, RadiumOne said: “Dark social is simply too big to ignore; sharing in the dark outstrips all other social channels combined by three-to-one, yet many brands are currently unable to understand this untapped audience. Acting on dark social presents a huge opportunity for brands to improve their ROI from their social media and digital marketing investments.”