With the increased focus — and adoption! — of social listening and social media engagement campaigns, it’s critical brands continue to consider dark social sharing behaviors that cannot be accurately tracked or quantified.
Seems simple-stupid, but the knee jerk reaction to dismiss email, IM and message boards as old-school communication mediums is more prevalent than you may think…
“Sharing activity through email, instant messaging and forum posts, aka dark social, is three times larger than the sharing activity on Facebook, globally,” the RadiumOne report finds, adding that “69% of all sharing activity takes place via dark social globally versus 23% via Facebook.”
RadiumOne also found that dark social represents the “majority” of sharing in 19 content categories, including “many that are important to advertisers such as travel, personal finance, technology and automotive.”
The report also found that more than a third of all social-sharing is now done via mobile device.
The report sheds another important ray of light on dark social sharing, finding that a third of consumers surveyed believe they only share via dark social. That percentage skews higher among older respondents.
via Study Sheds New Light On 'Dark' Social, Finds Consumers Underestimate Their Own Behavior 2-to-1.
GREG SWAN 