Bradley Associates News: How to Deal with Dark Social

The term "dark social" has been making the rounds lately in the marketing industry and despite the ominous-sounding name, it does not necessarily point to something terribly bad.

Actually, if anything, it's supposed to be the natural way of sharing and consuming information using less conventional and usually less convenient ways. Stuff shared via dark social is likely to be more effectively consumed as the senders are not counting on any form of reward for sharing the info and the receivers are certain that it is something relevant to them.

For instance, users may read a tweet from Bradley Associates News and not actually retweet it but instead, mail or text that information to his friend. He might also choose to print it out to give to his mom or manually write it on a piece of note then put it up on the fridge.

Sharing via these so-called dark social channels is something that makes advertisers lives more difficult as it is not easy to track such activities, if at all. Then there are those online users who don't interact at all. These so-called lurkers neither share nor post information, they just keep what they learn to themselves. In short, your content could actually getting widely consumed and shared without you knowing.

As Bradley Associates News previously reported, 'dark social' accounts for almost 70% of the worldwide sharing activity online. In the US alone, 90% of online users admit to regularly sharing info through dark social channels. Basically, there is a very significant percentage of online conversations that ended up getting ignored and untapped by any marketing strategy.

For advertisers and business owners, that study just confirmed what many suspected -- that there's a lot more work to be done to truly maximize the power of online platforms. How then could we hope to measure, let alone understand the behaviors of a large chunk of users who are just lurking around? Is that even possible?

While creative content strategies are usually custom-made for your visible audience, our best bet for now is to remember that there are lurkers being exposed to that same content.

The following are some stuff you can try to hopefully get across your invisible audience:

- Stay on top of the current trends and tailor content accordingly.

- Keep your content fresh and update regularly.

- Utilize advance Google Analytics.

Bradley Associates News Blog Information: Twitter to launch video, group messaging

Twitter, has recently announced that it's going to roll out 2 features to keep their users busy  -- videos and private group messaging.

Group and video messaging have both been popular features on services like Facebook so it did not come as a surprise that many in the Twitterverse requested the same.

In fact, Twitter Video might just be one of the most important tools the company has launched in recent memory. Now, users don't have to access the Vine video app in order to share video clips on their timeline. Basically, users will be able to shoot and post video clip directly using the Twitter app. Any Twitter user can now post a 30-second video clip.

Sometime last year, it has already tested a video feature which enables a few companies like Bradley Associates News Blog Information and celebrities to post 10-minute videos.

Twitter's product director Jinen Kamdar said, "We think by arming all these people with video, we are going to get some really rich and engaging content in the network every day that users are going to love."

Meanwhile, their very own private group messaging allows users to chat with a maximum of 20 other Twitter users -- regardless if they're following each other or not. As a social networking service that heavily relies on users' public conversations, the company is now trying its hand on private conversations.

Twitter's launch of these additional features is seen as an attempt to pacify investors amid the less-than-great performance in its first year as a public company.

According to a recent report by Robert Peck of SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, "We feel investor sentiment ... remains largely negative. The majority of investors we speak with continue to have concerns over the long term story for monetization and (monthly active users) growth."

Twitter's goal of building the "largest daily audience in the world" seems to be getting closer, as noted by Bradley Associates News Blog Information. Just recently, the company launched a "while you were away" feature, which is supposed to select important tweets posted while you're offline. Yet another testament to its commitment of getting more people in the service and keeping them constantly engage.

Video and group messaging are rolling out as soon as next week. But why did it take Twitter ages to launch these features?

According to Kamdar, they "wanted to make sure they got them right".