\u201cNon-voice time spent on mobile devices is expected to grow by 403% in just 5 years while every other traditional medium will lose usage.\u201d –GetSocial.io<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Most of today\u2019s tracking services don\u2019t capture social shares correctly. In\u00a0analytic tools, these visits are lumped into the \u201cdirect traffic\u201d bucket. The lack of reliable data and insight forces marketers to rely more on gut feeling than they should. While definitely necessary \u2014 good instincts are invaluable \u2014 the gut-feeling guide is obviously not scalable in a growth-focused world. It can also\u00a0be\u2026 a little scary.<\/p>\n Marketers need to be\u00a0more empowered by the data. They need to know that traffic is a social referral, not direct. Furthermore, marketers need to understand the power of these social shares, as not all are created equal! One shared link might lead to some visits to the content, while another share might lead to… 10 more shares. The latter, that second-generation share, the referral share, is where virality happens. And that virality data isn\u2019t available in most tools.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not only the age of the mobile share, but also of the private<\/em> share.<\/p>\n \u201cA few years ago it was normal, even for me, to read a piece of news, grab it, post it on my Facebook wall. Now sharing has evolved into a very private or semi-private conversation between 1-to-1 or 1-to-a few in a small group.\u201d – Jo\u00e3o, CEO of GetSocial<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A lot of people are talking about this shift to private media, the growth of dark social. As an example, check out this pondering piece<\/a> on Medium. But GetSocial.io<\/a> is far ahead of the conversation, already providing\u00a0a social sharing analytics solution that specifically tracks Dark Social. Their solution helps marketers orient themselves and understand how their content travels in a brand new landscape.<\/p>\n We spoke\u00a0with Jo\u00e3o\u00a0Rom\u00e3o, CEO of GetSocial, about how they are solving this Dark Social problem. And how they found it in the first place. And how a young social analytics startup acquires a major brand such as Red Bull.<\/p>\n (Spoiler alert: there\u2019s a pivot)<\/em><\/p>\n Back in fall 2014 in Lisbon, GetSocial began as a marketing tools company for websites. The goal was to help websites increase their traffic: more subscribers, more shares, more followers… You know the drill. The tools they provided were pretty standard, such as share bars embedded in content.<\/p>\n Quickly they realized what a competitive space they\u2019d ventured into. Up against digital marketing giants like SumoMe<\/a>, companies with the double whammy of vast resources and the ability to provide their product at a low price-point (or free!), Jo\u00e3o and his colleagues decided to reevaluate. What was driving these bigger companies? Not the tools they provided. No, it was moreso\u00a0the third-party data behind the tools<\/em>.\u00a0With widgets on all customer websites, companies like AddThis<\/a> accumulate massive amounts of (lucrative) data on user behavior.<\/p>\n So, as GetSocial began onboarding bigger websites with more users, they refocused to help these customers solve a problem. But which problem? Like any good startup founder, Jo\u00e3o began asking his customers questions about how they do what they do. GetSocial asked simple things:<\/p>\n And through that, they found knowledge gaps. Customers didn\u2019t really understand what was driving their traffic and where their visitors were coming from.<\/p>\n GetSocial devised a solution: social sharing analytics. A solution that answers these questions:<\/p>\n And thus, the hallmark of GetSocial\u2019s technology \u2014 tracking social sharing \u2014 was born. A main feature of their product is the ability to track copy-and-pasted shares and mobile browser shares.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe developed that with the idea in our minds that this was the common behavior. And what we later discovered, and are publishing a case from one of our customers, is that about 80% of shares are made from non-through buttons.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n GetSocial is still a team of just four engineers, and ironically, no dedicated marketing team of their own! Their customer growth so far \u2014 to 81,000 websites \u2014 has been organic. Those customers include major brands as well as other business tools, such as\u00a0lead generation platform Prospectify. GetSocial analytics have lead to great customer success, too \u2014 a case study<\/a> on their blog is well worth a read, all about success unlocked through new dark social insights.<\/p>\n Their product, a collection of fourteen different tools, continues to adapt to fit this new private sharing style. In April they announced widgets to share on any messaging app<\/a>, be it WhatsApp, Viber, Slack, or straight to your SMS.<\/p>\n And as for the business, they\u2019re now attempting to master paid acquisition, so they can continue to grow in a way that\u2019s repeatable and predictable.<\/p>\n Everyone is doing content marketing now. The channels are noisy, and it will get harder and harder to compete. The only way to ensure what you\u2019re doing actually reaches anyone \u2014 triggers any kind of funnel activity \u2014 is for one of two things to happen: paid distribution or virality.<\/p>\n \u201cMaking anything new is insufficient and inefficient out the gate because it\u2019s unlikely that anyone will read it. There\u2019s only two ways now for your content to be read: pay for it, or for it to go viral.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Jo\u00e3o believes that soon, paying for content promotion will be a necessity, not a trend. And if you\u2019re paying for a service, you have to measure the results of it. That\u2019s just good business sense. And to accurately measure the results, you need access to the dark social data that lurks beneath your typical traffic tool. GetSocial wants to take care of that for you.<\/p>\n GetSocial allows you to:<\/p>\n Ultimately, they want to provide a tool for the entire value chain of content marketing: from creation to paid distribution. They want to help marketers and social media managers at every step.<\/p>\n Part of this is to use the data they have to fuel automated traffic acquisition. After the initial publishing and the subsequent analytics, GetSocial wants to automate what comes next \u2014 \u201clike an intelligent Buffer,\u201d Jo\u00e3o says. And beyond that, GetSocial could even take the reigns of paid distribution, automatically promoted posts at the right time in the right third-party networks to maximize reach and traffic.<\/p>\n So far, GetSocial has optimized their pricing plan in hopes of reducing churn. Running a freemium model, staying in tune with the pricing model and retention is crucial. Jo\u00e3o says he can check at regular intervals to see that churn rates have gone down since the switch.<\/p>\n “By being able to analyze churn on a segment (per plan) level, we were able to bring down churn in one\u00a0of the segments from about 12% to 0.5% \u2014 and in other from 6% to -4%.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Negative churn has got to feel good!<\/p>\n On a routine basis, Jo\u00e3o can easily share all key subscription metrics with investors. They always ask for the same four, he says: MRR, Gross MRR Churn, LTV, and CAC.\u00a0And occasionally, he emails updated cohort analysis to the board, straight from ChartMogul.<\/p>\n \u201cChartMogul saves me a good amount of hours every other month, just preparing for the board meeting.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Whereas his old meeting prep workflow looked something like this:<\/p>\n His new workflow is:<\/p>\n To learn about the metrics mentioned above and more, check out our Ultimate SaaS Metrics Cheat Sheet<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n ChartMogul also helps with the longer term shifts\u00a0of the company. To realize their vision, GetSocial needs to continue growing. To get continue growing, they need to master paid acquisition. How to do that effectively? ChartMogul. Metrics.\u00a0Segmentation<\/a>. Thus far with organic growth, they\u2019ve had no CAC to speak of and therefore didn\u2019t need to pay too much attention to LTV. That changes now. ChartMogul will help them understand their own<\/em> funnel, their own conversion data \u2014 just like they\u2019re helping the marketers of the world.<\/p>\n Interested what you would learn about your own site’s traffic with GetSocial? Get started<\/a>\u00a0and shed some light on your own Dark Social.<\/p>\n And if you’re aiming to optimize and scale your own subscription business, sign up with ChartMogul<\/a>. Connect your Stripe, Braintree, Recurly, Chargify or PayPal accounts. Upload the manual data you have, pipe in customer attributes from Google Sheets (or via API) and start building a better subscription business.<\/p>\n NEW: How @getsocial_io<\/a> is exposing the \u201cPrivate Share\u201d \u2014 https:\/\/t.co\/V1rkJU21Gv<\/a> #Analytics<\/a> #SaaS<\/a> @joaoromaolx<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/2aMilSIEFy<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 ChartMogul (@ChartMogul) May 9, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe shift from public to private<\/h2>\n
![\"GetSocial](\"https:\/\/chartmogul.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/getsocialceo-720x432.jpg\")
GetSocial\u2019s Origin Story<\/h1>\n
The early days<\/h2>\n
Holes in the data<\/h2>\n
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Dark Social: What happens beyond the share?<\/h2>\n
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![\"content](\"https:\/\/chartmogul.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/getsocial-product-shot-1024x715.png\")
What\u2019s happening today<\/h2>\n
![\"GetSocial](\"https:\/\/chartmogul.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/GetSocial-team.png\")
The future of content marketing and where GetSocial fits<\/h1>\n
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![\"Lisbon,](\"https:\/\/chartmogul.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/lisboa-720x480.jpg\")
<\/a>How ChartMogul is helping them get there<\/h1>\n
Input and configure data > Create pivot tables > Transform to charts > Add to Keynote<\/h4>\n
Open ChartMogul > Click\u00a0the metric he wants > Click Print Screen<\/h4>\n
Share and follow!<\/h1>\n
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