With over 35% of UK adults reducing their time on apps and choosing to 'detox' from social media, brands now need to work harder in order to make sure their social presence is adding as much value as possible. In relation, dark social is slowly rising up the ranks - fewer public interactions are taking place in favour of more private messages, Instagram Direct Messages, Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger.
Inbound web traffic coming from 'dark social', such as via links from email, forums or instant message, now accounts for 74 per cent all online sharing activity in the UK, according to research from RadiumOne. The 'Light and Dark of Social Sharing- harnessing the power of consumer connections study' , found that activity via dark social, which refers to any online activity which web analytics are unable to track, far outweighs sharing on Facebook (19 per cent)