Dark Social: There is more than Facebook and Twitter … – Alexis C. Madrigal – The Atlantic

Great analysis! And I like the term „Dark Social“. Facebook and Twitter get a lot of attention but account for a relatively small proportion of social sharing, Alexis Madrigal writes. Studies suggest that 20% of social sharing happens on Facebook, 6% happens via Twitter and as much as 69% happens via „dark social“ — tools such as e-mail and instant messaging that are difficult for brands and publishers to measure and track.

1. The sharing you see on sites like Facebook and Twitter is the tip of the ’social‘ iceberg. We are impressed by its scale because it’s easy to measure.

2. But most sharing is done via dark social means like email and IM that are difficult to measure.

3. According to new data on many media sites, 69% of social referrals came from dark social. 20% came from Facebook.

4. Facebook and Twitter do shift the paradigm from private sharing to public publishing. They structure, archive, and monetize your publications.

via Dark Social: We Have the Whole History of the Web Wrong – Alexis C. Madrigal – The Atlantic.