PR Courses
The Public Relations BlogDigital PRDigital TransformationDark Social: The Online Interaction We Can’t See
Digital PRDigital Transformation

Dark Social: The Online Interaction We Can’t See

How can we measure what we can’t see?

Jerry Silfwer
by Jerry Silfwer

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

Table of contents

Dark social is an essen­tial shar­ing factor — but it’s hidden.

Alexis Madrigal, a seni­or edit­or at The Atlantic, coined what might prove to be a very much-dis­cussed term amongst social media nat­ur­als for some time to come:

Behold the dark social of online sharing.

Here we go:

Dark Social: What We Can’t Measure

Dark Social

We’re impressed with the shar­ing num­bers from vari­ous social net­works, includ­ing Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. 

But how much is socially shared bey­ond meas­ure, bey­ond what we can see? How much is shared via email, instant mes­sages and dir­ect mes­sages? How much is shared on darknets, BBS net­works and untrace­able forums? 

According to Alexis Madrigal, seni­or edit­or at The Atlantic, quite a lot.

Dark Social Diagram
Most of the shar­ing takes place on dark social.

Here’s a tl;dr sum­mary of dark social from The Atlantic:

“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 which 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 open pub­lish­ing. They struc­ture, archive, and mon­et­ize your publications.”

When cal­cu­lat­ing reach num­bers for your PR cam­paigns, are you tak­ing dark social into account? 

Read also: Dark Social: The Online Interaction We Can’t See

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

Signature - Jerry Silfwer - Doctor Spin

Thanks for read­ing. Please sup­port my blog by shar­ing art­icles with oth­er com­mu­nic­a­tions and mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als. You might also con­sider my PR ser­vices or speak­ing engage­ments.

PR Resource: Types of Social Objects

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Types of Social Objects

I’m pro­pos­ing a spe­cif­ic clas­si­fic­a­tion of social object types to map word-of-mouth for dif­fer­ent PR activities. 

Types of social objects:

1. Curiosity Objects. Is your PR object a curi­os­ity worthy of get­ting people to talk about it with each other?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk send­ing a Tesla Roadster into space?”

2. Fear Objects. Is your PR object reflect­ing a fear or anxi­ety not­able enough to get people talk­ing about it with each other?

“Have you heard how Elon Musk isn’t expect­ing every­one on the first Mars exped­i­tion to survive?”

3. Gap Objects. Is your PR object filling some form of a gap that will make it easi­er for people to talk about the object with each other? 

“Have you heard about Elon Musk launch­ing Neuralink to con­nect human brains with technology?”

4. Mystery Objects. Is your PR object stim­u­lat­ing con­ver­sa­tion between people due to its intriguing nature?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk sleep­ing on the floor in one of his Tesla factories?”

5. Inspirational Objects. Is your PR object enough of a gen­er­al interest mile­stone or inspir­a­tion to get people talk­ing to each oth­er about it? 

“Have you heard about Elon Musk build­ing a whole city, Solar City, based on renew­able energy?”

6. Envy Objects. Is your PR object reflect­ing some­thing that will make people talk to each oth­er about ambi­tions and aspirations?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk being nearly broke but still man­aging to build incred­ible companies?”

7. Conflict Objects. Is your PR object part of a rel­ev­ant con­flict that engages people enough to dis­cuss it with each other?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk tak­ing on the whole car industry with his elec­tric Teslas?”

8. Ego Objects. Is your PR object usable as a token of self-iden­ti­fic­a­tion when talk­ing to others?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk prac­tising First Principle thinking?”

9. Anger Objects. Is your PR object pro­voc­at­ive enough to evoke an emo­tion­al response worthy of dis­cuss­ing with oth­er people?

“Have you heard about Elon Musk smoking weed on the Joe Rogan podcast?”

Learn more: Social Objects and Public Relations

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

PR Resource: Social Media PR Issues

Social media issues.
Social media issues.
Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

List of Social Media Issues

Social media isn’t just sun­shine and rain­bows. With massive change come new social media issues we must deal with.

Here are a few examples of social media issues:

Read also: Social Media: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

Logo - Spin Academy - Online PR Courses

PR Resource: How To Measure Attitudes

How To Measure Public Relations

How do you meas­ure pub­lic rela­tions (PR)? I recom­mend meas­ur­ing atti­tudes and beha­viours using ques­tion­naires, rat­ing scales, inter­views, reports (logs, journ­als, diar­ies, etc.), and observations.

How to Measure Public Relations - Doctor Spin
How to meas­ure pub­lic relations.

The gen­er­al recom­mend­a­tion for PR meas­ure­ment: I recom­mend the soci­olo­gic­al meth­od for get­ting valu­able and action­able res­ults from meas­ur­ing pub­lic rela­tions. This means meas­ur­ing atti­tudes and beha­viours. 1Silfwer, J. (2021, March 4). Methods of Measuring Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​m​e​a​s​u​r​i​n​g​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

Attitude Measurements in PR

There are a few things to con­sider when meas­ur­ing atti­tudes and beha­viours cor­rectly. 2Educational Communications and Technology. (2001, August 3). 34.5 Measuring Attitudes. The Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology. … Continue read­ing

An atti­tude meas­ure­ment should meet the fol­low­ing criteria:

  • Valid
  • Reliable
  • Simple to Administer, Explain, and Understand
  • Replicable

There are four main types of atti­tude meas­ure­ment approaches:

  • Self-Reporting
  • Reports of Others
  • Internal Reporting (Sociometric Reporting)
  • Records

There are four main types of atti­tude meas­ure­ment methods:

  • Questionnaires and Rating Scales
  • Interviews
  • Reports (Logs, Journals, Diaries, etc.)
  • Observations

Learn more: How To Measure Public Relations

PR Resource: The Golden Rule of Measuring PR

“What gets meas­ured, gets done.”
— Peter Drucker

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

The Golden Rule of Measuring PR

If an organ­isa­tion focuses on the wrong met­rics, it might estab­lish, main­tain, or devel­op the wrong long-term rela­tion­ships. 3The insight is based on 18+ years of prac­tic­al con­sult­ing exper­i­ence.

The Golden Rule of Measuring PR: Your choice of PR meas­ure­ment meth­od and track­able PR object­ives will impact your organ­isa­tion more than the res­ult­ing meas­ure­ments ever will.

Choosing the meas­ure­ment meth­od and object­ives for pub­lic rela­tions is more crit­ic­al than get­ting the actu­al data from those trackings.

Learn more: The Golden Rule of Measuring PR

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

Logo - Spin Academy - Online PR Courses
ANNOTATIONS
ANNOTATIONS
1 Silfwer, J. (2021, March 4). Methods of Measuring Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​m​e​a​s​u​r​i​n​g​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/
2 Educational Communications and Technology. (2001, August 3). 34.5 Measuring Attitudes. The Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology. https://​mem​bers​.aect​.org/​e​d​t​e​c​h​/​e​d​1​/​3​4​/34 – 05.html
3 The insight is based on 18+ years of prac­tic­al con­sult­ing experience.
Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at Spin Factory and KIX Communication Index. Before that, he worked at Kaufmann, Whispr Group, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Cover Photo

The cover photo isn't related to public relations obviously; it's just a photo of mine. Think of it as a 'decorative diversion', a subtle reminder that it's good to have hobbies outside work.

The cover photo has

Dark Social—The Online Interaction We Just Can’t See

.

Subscribe to SpinCTRL—it’s 100% free!

Join 2,550+ fellow PR lovers and subscribe to Jerry’s free newsletter on communication and psychology.
What will you get?

> PR commentary on current events.
> Subscriber-only VIP content.
> My personal PR slides for .key and .ppt.
> Discounts on upcoming PR courses.
> Ebook on getting better PR ideas.
Subscribe to SpinCTRL today by clicking SUBSCRIBE and get your first free send-out instantly.

Latest Posts
Similar Posts
Most Popular
Doctor Spin | The PR Blog
The PR Blog
Contact: jerry@doctorspin.net
Facebook Instagram Linkedin TikTok Twitter
Web and design by Doctor Spin