Dark Social: Why Does It Matter to B2B Marketing?

Imagine you just found an insightful article that could help your team tackle a common issue. Instead of sharing it openly, you forward it directly to a colleague or client over WhatsApp, or maybe via a quick email. This is what’s known as dark social. It’s a term for any social sharing that happens outside of the standard public platforms or tracked analytics—essentially, interactions in the “dark” because they’re difficult, if not impossible, to track.

Dark social is growing rapidly, especially in B2B marketing, where trust, discretion, and peer-to-peer recommendations are invaluable. In fact, research suggests that a substantial percentage of online referrals come from dark social. This makes it essential for B2B marketers to pay attention—there’s valuable customer activity happening behind the scenes that isn’t being picked up by traditional analytics.

Why Dark Social is Important for B2B Marketing

Dark Social holds a unique role in the B2B world. B2B buyers and decision-makers often rely on trusted sources and referrals more heavily than other customer groups, given the high stakes and significant investments involved. For instance, before making a software purchase decision, a company may share product recommendations or case studies through WhatsApp chats, private LinkedIn messages, or Slack channels. These are high-value exchanges where decision-makers can ask questions, clarify doubts, and get real feedback—all in a trusted, closed environment.

These interactions are particularly valuable because:

• They’re genuine: Unlike ads or public reviews, these private discussions are unfiltered and personal.
• They’re targeted: Often shared by people with specific expertise or experience, making it highly relevant to the receiver.
• They build trust: A direct recommendation from a peer carries significant weight, often more than any marketing campaign can.

Challenges Dark Social Poses to B2B Marketers

While dark social represents a goldmine of potential, it’s also one of the trickiest elements to capture and measure effectively. Here are a few of the major challenges:

1. Limited Tracking and Attribution: Dark social channels don’t allow marketers to see the full journey from awareness to conversion. For instance, a prospective client might first encounter your brand via a shared article in a private Slack chat and eventually become a customer, but without being able to track this journey, you can’t see where that lead came from.
2. Loss of Data and Insights: With a growing focus on privacy, understanding customer intent and gathering insights becomes more challenging. For example, a company that suddenly sees a spike in website visits may find it difficult to trace this back to a private WhatsApp conversation.
3. Incomplete ROI Measurement: When it’s unclear how leads discover and engage with your brand, proving the return on investment (ROI) of marketing efforts becomes complex. This often leads to undervaluing dark social’s role in driving revenue.

How to Identify Dark Social Traffic and Activity

It’s not entirely impossible to get a glimpse into dark social activity. Here are some approaches:

• Use UTM Parameters: Adding UTM tracking codes to URLs helps trace back some direct traffic. For example, if a client clicks on a link with a UTM parameter from an email or message, you’ll get an idea of its source.
• Analyse Direct Traffic Patterns: Look out for sudden surges in direct traffic—particularly after a piece of content has been promoted. If you notice a jump in visits to a specific article or page without any recent ads or social posts, it’s likely due to dark social sharing.
• Ask Sales for Input: Encourage your sales team to share insights they gather from clients. They often hear directly about sources like a shared article or a private recommendation, and these insights can help fill gaps in your attribution model.

Strategies to Leverage Dark Social for B2B Marketing

So, how can B2B marketers make the most of dark social, even if it’s largely invisible? Here are some strategies:

1. Create Shareable, High-Value Content
   Make sure your content is genuinely helpful and easy to share. When you offer practical insights, clients are more likely to share it in private groups. For instance, create downloadable guides or concise, visually appealing infographics that clients can easily pass along.
2. Build Relationships and Advocacy
   Invest in community building and relationship nurturing, as loyal customers and advocates can be your best dark social ambassadors. This might mean fostering a LinkedIn group, supporting industry forums, or even hosting virtual roundtables where customers can connect and exchange knowledge.
3. Leverage Influencers and Micro-Influencers
   Industry experts can help amplify your message in places you might not even have access to. If they share your content within their networks, it reaches private channels where decision-makers are likely to take notice.
4. Align Sales and Marketing
   Equip your sales team with content that resonates with the audiences they interact with. They’re often at the receiving end of dark social referrals—clients tell them, “I saw this article in a chat,” or “Someone recommended your tool to me.” Use these insights to refine your content and track what’s working.

Future of Dark Social in B2B Marketing

Dark social will only grow in significance as privacy regulations tighten and people seek safer spaces for information sharing. For B2B marketers, this means staying flexible and being ready to adapt strategies. While dark social activity will likely remain partly hidden, AI and machine learning advancements may improve tracking and attribution, helping to reveal patterns in this space.

Additionally, marketers should consider creating content that performs well on both public and private channels. Instead of resisting dark social’s private nature, embrace it and strategise around the unique ways your audience prefers to engage.

Conclusion

Dark social may be hard to pin down, but it plays an undeniable role in shaping buying decisions and building trust in B2B marketing. By understanding its significance and leveraging it as a strategic tool, B2B brands can stay relevant in a changing digital landscape. Embrace the hidden side of digital engagement—because it may just be where your most valuable conversations are happening.

The views and opinions published here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the publisher.

Leena Guha Roy

With 13 years of experience as a growth marketing strategist, she excels at driving business expansion through innovative digital marketing strategies and data-driven decision-making. Passionate about leveraging emerging trends and technologies, she has successfully led numerous campaigns that significantly boosted client engagement and revenue. Her extensive involvement with startups has required her to multitask and wear many hats, fostering her development as a highly motivated autodidact with a strong growth mindset.