When it comes to social selling, 43% of gen z ranks influencer recommendations as highly relevant to their decision-making process, whereas only 18% of gen x and 9% of boomers say the same.
Understanding your audience’s generational differences goes a long way toward finding out where they spend time, both online and offline, and how to reach them on their favorite dark social channels, such as in-person events or private groups.
Dark social is all about connection. People join private facebook groups or forums to meet and talk with other like-minded people. A lot of that talk centers around advice.
For example, people in the final stages of researching a purchase will often ask others their opinion, like in r/fujifilm.
Encourage Engagement
I know reddit isn’t strictly a dark social channel only private subreddits are, but it shows the specific types of questions people ask in niche forums like this.
In an era when you can watch 700 review videos for a product on youtube, we still turn to people we consider experts — friends, family, or niche communities — for purchasing advice. For 89% of buyers, personal referrals and recommendations are still their most trusted source.
Dark social helps you find these powerful business email list sources. Continuing the photography example above, a camera store may discover a local enthusiasts’ group and partner with them to run sponsored events or info sessions. Or, learn new questions buyers have about products and use that to revise their product descriptions or faq pages.
Cinematic Filters and Transitions
Plus, knowing what people discuss in dark social channels can inspire a goldmine of new social media content.
You can’t track everything, but there are ways Buy Lead to see through the murky swamps of dark social to find the data you’re looking for. Besides making your social posts tidy, shortening links also lets you add tracking information for accurate analytics measurement.
It really can’t get easier: shorten links on-the-fly inside hootsuite composer with our included ow.ly url shortener. You can also customize ow.ly links to pass through accurate analytics parameters or write your own custom ones, which is especially useful for tracking specific campaigns or promotions.
