The term "dark social" was coined by Alexis Madrigal eleven years ago when he realized that 56% of their traffic was coming from unknown sources, rather than well-known platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and X. The Atlantic Magazine editor realized that when marketers only track engagement, they end up missing the big picture. There is so much that they miss; therefore, the term “dark social” is used. 

Dark social refers to the sharing of data on private communication channels, including group chats, group texts, and conversations on top private social media communities, such as Telegram, Discord, and Slack. The conversations and sharing on these platforms aren't tracked by Google or other social media analytics. This means it can be hard to market to this group of people. Fortunately, this article will guide you in creating a social media campaign strategy for dark social. 

Tips For Marketing on the Dark Social

If you are trying to market to people on the dark social, here are several tips you can consider using:

Market to a Small Circle

Traditionally, the bigger the reach of your marketing campaign, the more effective they are considered to be. When marketing to a dark social community, the goal should be to keep a tight community. Therefore, if you find some people aren't fully committed to your brand, don’t be afraid to turn them away. 

Your goal should be to create a sense where all users feel a sense of belonging and are committed to it. You can read our guide on creating a YouTube community.

Understand Your Brand Personality

Before you try to market to people, you need to understand who you are as a brand, what you stand for, your mission, values, and so on. To do that, you need to ask yourself several questions, such as:

• What kind of experience are you aiming to provide your customers with?
• How do you want the customers to feel after interacting with your brand?
• What value are you providing them with?
• What is unique about your brand?
• What image of your brand do you want people to have?
• Which style are you using?
• What do you want people to say about your brand?

These questions will help you determine the North Star of your brand. Ensure that the brand personality has all the necessary structures in place. This is what all your team members will try to articulate when representing your brand. While you will discuss it on public social media, it is also where you will implement it.

Create Valuable Content

You don't create a community with the goal of marketing to the members. If that is your goal, you will fail at your first try. Instead, you need to provide value to the members of your dark social community. Keep creating quality content. Otherwise, if you are only bombarding them with useless promotional posts, they will soon lose interest.

Ensure that every piece of information you share is valuable, relevant, and concise. When you invite people to a private conversation, you are not just inviting them to your inbox; you are promising to add value to them. 

Therefore, don't use the broad-brush social media marketing messaging you use in your public social media. Instead, focus on valuable niche content for your dark community. When you do so, you will leave your audience feeling special and privileged, capturing their interest in the long run.

Provide Less

One of the drawbacks of social media algorithms is that they make it difficult for content to reach the intended audience. The benefit of public platforms is that you can post as much content as possible without overwhelming your audience. On the other hand, when marketing on dark social media, less is usually more. If you send too many messages to your audience, you will likely make people unsubscribe or you will get blocked. 

A common mistake that dark social marketers make is to bombard their audience with messages when they have an upcoming webinar, just as they do with email marketing. Doing that will make people lose interest in the dark social. Therefore, a good idea would be to focus on one post a day. 

Leverage Microinfluencer Collaboration

It is an open secret that influencer marketing is an effective marketing strategy, as people tend to trust the recommendations of individuals they trust. Just like in public social, influencers can be a tremendous asset for your dark social campaign strategy. You can imagine a situation where, after posting a link on a public platform, it's shared by an influencer with a large following to their followers through messaging apps. This can drive a lot of clicks on your link. 

The reason influencer marketing is effective is due to the trust it fosters. When people trust the sender of the link, they are more likely to trust it. This is in addition to the fact that brand advocates and influencers can join communities and market your products to members without being perceived as inauthentic or overly salesy.

The good thing with influencer marketing on dark social is that you don’t need a huge budget to work with mega influencers. You can work with microinfluencers in your niche, as they have a high engagement rate, which is more important than their actual number of followers.

Encourage Private Sharing

You should encourage your audience to share your content or brand through dark social. For instance, you can add buttons labeled "Share through Email," "WhatsApp," or "SMS" on your blog or website. When you encourage people to share through these private methods, you can significantly benefit from personal recommendations, a key factor affecting purchasing decisions.

In Conclusion

Despite the dark social sounding ominous, it can be a good part of a good digital marketing strategy. However, since you cannot track the performance of the marketing strategy, you need to be more creative in leveraging it. Fortunately, with our steps above, you can create an effective dark social marketing campaign.