
Q: My digital agency mentioned I should pay attention to the opportunities that exist with creating content for dark social when developing my social media strategy. What exactly is dark social and how can I leverage it to drive more traffic to my website?
Recently, I noticed an ex-client of mine was running a Kickstarter campaign that was — to put it bluntly — a bit of a flop. It had been live for a couple of months with minimal sales, and the brand’s social media posts about it were barely scratching a handful of likes and shares. I made a note-to-self to give the brand founder a call, and then I was immersed in a few busy weeks of industry conferences, and didn’t look at the campaign again until a month later.
When I did head to Kickstarter to take another look, I was surprised to see that the campaign had achieved its target sales, and then some. I’d expected to make that call and offer some marketing support, but instead, I made the call just to ask the question: “How did you do that?”
And the answer was dark social.