Feature: Direct marketing: Keep your friends close

Mike Barnes, director of marketing and business development at the Direct Marketing Association, on social networking websites

Social networking websites. Now there’s a thing. As a late adopter and firmly under the illusion that people using these sites have no mates, I have to say I am totally and utterly wrong.

There are hundreds of sites that are listed and probably thousands lurking in the bowels of the web. What is really remarkable is the volume of people using them and the variety. A year ago Facebook had over 20 million active users. Ravelry for those interested in knitting and crochet has over 80,000. Cake Financial, a site for investing, doesn’t appear to have any but then again nobody has any money. There are 22 million business folk registered on LinkedIn.

Many businesses have their own areas and special interest groups on most of these sites. Well-known UK exhibition companies are using them as part of their marketing, and charities are jumping on the bandwagon. Even the DMA has a Facebook idea which is sitting in the filing tray of the legal team by their quill pens.

Social networking is word-of-mouth marketing at its best and costs nothing. It does something that no other medium can do. It binds people around a common interest in an interesting, non-sales and interactive way. It gets people communicating and it gets them sharing and talking.

Sales promotion is a lively, active and passionate industry and where on earth can we share ideas or just talk about stuff that is not product or business related? Where can we talk as folk with a common career and network 24/7? Nowhere. So there is the challenge. A cross-industry web area to meet, share, moan, laugh, and generally chat with like-minded career professionals who you would only meet in the bar at the annual awards. Fabulous.