On the 16th November from 8.30am at our London HQ, Research & Insight Director André van Loon will be hosting a breakfast briefing as part of Social Media Week London to shed light on the mysterious world of Dark Social. The session will take attendees through the challenges, opportunities, and need-to-knows for brands looking to engage audiences via messaging apps; all supported with key learnings from real-life case studies.
Since 2011, we have seen a dramatic shift in the way people communicate and share content online. Dedicated messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and WeChat have emerged and grown; many major social networks have increased the capabilities of their own private messaging functions. People have embraced this more private means of communication. This is dark social.
Difficult to track and ‘hidden’ but increasingly important – it’s believed that last year over 75% of social referrals were made on dark social. Friends chose to share links to content they liked privately, rather than tagging other users or re-sharing content to their wall.
Yet, despite this change in behaviour, Econsultancy recently reported that only 4% of marketers are taking dark social seriously. With brands unable to monitor engagement rates or analyse brand sentiment on these ‘dark’ channels, how can marketers use these platforms to engage audiences? And what do we, as an industry, really need to know?
Attendees will walk away with a greater understanding of:
What dark social is and how it relates to organic and paid social marketing;
The challenges faced by marketers and how brands such be measuring the effectiveness of dark social;
Success stories from brands who have tapped into dark social, and what we can learn;
