Jenkinson & Associates
Marketing With Results

Invisible Sharing: Why ‘Dark Social’ Deserves Your Attention

You won’t see it in your analytics dashboard. It won’t show up in the retweet count, or neatly tuck itself under campaign insights - but it’s there, quietly steering the conversation behind the scenes. It's called Dark Social - and while the name might sound like a new sci-fi series, it’s actually reshaping the way people discover, share, and trust online content.

Dark social is digital word-of-mouth in its purest, messiest, most human form. It's what happens when someone copies a link and texts it to a friend, pastes it into a work email, or shares it in a private Slack chat. No likes, no shares, no public signals - just real people passing along content because it mattered enough to them to share privately. And while that sounds warm and authentic (and it is), there’s one problem: most marketing teams have absolutely no idea it’s happening.

Most brands pour energy into SEO and visible social media, assuming they’re getting a clear view of engagement. In truth? Up to 80% of shares can happen via dark social. That’s a massive chunk of data slipping through the cracks. The likes, retweets, and comments don’t show the full picture of what content people care enough to share in real, one-to-one conversations - and that matters.

Because digital marketing isn’t just about who clicked - it’s also about who shared, why they shared, and where they passed it on. Miss those layers and you're building strategy in the dark.

A Blind Spot With Business Impact

When marketers think about performance, it’s usually tied to results they can quantify: traffic sources, clicks, conversions, time on site. But dark social wipes part of the chalkboard clean. These hidden shares often show up in data reports simply as "direct traffic” - the digital equivalent of someone just arriving at your doorstep without explanation. And when it's your campaign, product, or brand content sparking that mystery visit? You deserve to know.

Without tracking it properly, not only is marketing attribution weakened - which means ROI gets hazier - but opportunities to optimise get missed too. There might be a content type or topic getting quietly passed from phone to phone, inbox to inbox. Without visibility, you may overlook themes your audience values most.

Yet all hope is far from lost.

Marketers are already finding ways to surface some of this private behaviour. One example? Using trackable links and UTMs - those little code add-ons you sometimes see at the end of URLs - to figure out where people might be picking up your content. Smart shortening services like Bitly make it easier, showing what gets shared most and when.

Then there’s the content itself: highly emotional stories, eye-catching visuals, relatable opinions, simple stats. These are shareable hooks. Audiences are more likely to drop this type of content into their WhatsApp chats, DMs, or internal company emails - so give them the right tools to work with.

Trust, Timing, and Letting Go

If we’ve learned anything from the rise of dark social, it’s this: not everything can or should be perfectly measured. Some of the most effective marketing now happens privately - between individuals. Instead of battling for access to everything, the better move might be leaning into what makes content feel personal.

Dark social doesn’t kill your analytics; it deepens your challenge. It’s asking, not "How do we see it all?” but rather, "How do we create things worth sharing in quiet corners of the internet?"

That’s the modern approach to marketing: guide your message into real conversation - not just algorithms. Craft what’s shareable, then trust the value will spread.

The rest? It all happens in the dark.