Who’s Talking About You On Dark Social?

Author: Harry Rollason / Source: Business 2 Community

Who’s talking about you on Dark Social?

You’ve heard of dark matter and the dark web, but what about dark social?

It’s the final frontier for brand mentions, and if it’s new to you, you’d be shocked by what’s being said about your brand there.

But what exactly is it?

Before I explain dark social, let’s recap how normal social works: most social networks give consumers the ability to mention and interact with brands. This is great, as brands can check in on these mentions for insights, issues, feedback, and praise. It’s great for customer service, marketing, and even the product team. Yet when it comes to all mentions of your brand on social, this is like viewing the actual conversation through a pinhole.

Customers must go out of their way to mention brands, using hashtags and @ symbols, and unless they’re feeling inspired and go through extra effort, you can’t see or track it. Hence the term “dark social.”

And dark social accounts for as much as 84% of all brand mentions, according to RadiumOne.

Why might customers prefer to go dark? There are a variety of reasons:

1. It’s the default. Objects at rest remain at rest, and many customers simply don’t think to mention brands.
2. Customers have candid conversations. The conversations on social mirror those in real life and just as you don’t think to text Coca Cola every time you buy a soda, customers don’t tag their casual peer-to-peer thoughts.
3. To avoid conflict. Sometimes customers would rather complain about a poor experience than take the effort to raise…

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