Introducing our technology editor, Jamie Riddell (pictured). In this issue, he explains why harnessing social media is so important to direct marketers today.

Social media is set to be this year’s must-have marketing campaign. The continued growth of Facebook and the rise of Twitter into the (nearly) everyday conscious should have every marketing director and brand owner paying attention to these channels.

However, harnessing them does not need to be left solely to the PR and Word Of Mouth teams but instead can be looked upon as a valuable direct marketing channel.

Whether it is harnessing followers on Twitter, or seeking fans on Facebook, these sites and their many international rivals can offer a genuine extension to the digital direct marketing canon.

Message exposure, retweeting, link tracking and, ultimately, results, can all be tracked through various tools readily available online.

Combined with standard methods of digital tracking (views, clicks, results) social media can be compared favourably with other channels including search and online display advertising.

Social media can also deliver one major difference to standard digital marketing campaigns. The ‘why’ question.

• Why did someone not buy the product?
• Why did someone not click on the link?

In ‘traditional’ digital DM campaigns, quantitative research will tell us the numbers and, with some post-campaign qualitative research, we may understand general audience sentiment to the brand or product – but with social we can learn so much more just by listening.

Who said what about whom

There is a strong chance there are many mentions of your product and/or brand across social media, waiting to be listened to. And listen you should, as this can have a  strong impact on your wider DM campaigns. The monitoring of it is not new, tools like Google Alerts and Blogpulse.com have been offering free tools for years. However, the rise of Twitter, in particular, has seen the volume of brand mentions rocket. Again, free tools like Twitter Search, found on the homepage of www.twitter.com can help you understand what is being said and by whom.

A brand active in Twitter can also reach out and ask the specific person why they did not like such a product, something that cannot be done in post-campaign research.

As the Twitter audience matures, they will expect brands to pay attention. If I have a problem with a product or brand, I will tweet about it, sharing my views and seeking support from the brand owner, whom I hope will be paying attention.

The smart brand owner will also be watching for business opportunities. If I tweet about needing help planning a skiing holiday, I am naturally happy when a brand pops up and asks if they can help me. If I complain and the brand is not paying attention, more fool them! Chances are, their smarter competitors will be watching and contacting me.

Social media campaigns also have the potential to deliver improvements to other DM campaigns. Listening to the chatter on Twitter may help you understand people’s opinions or concerns about your product or brand. If you launch a new mobile phone, watch what people are saying about it and then see how the chatter is reflected in your search copy. If people are talking about poor battery life or warranty concerns, make sure you answer those concerns in your copy. Combining the social and the direct means you can allay consumer concerns, which can lead to improved conversion levels and better results.

As Google, Bing and Yahoo start to include live social content in their social results so brand chatter will also start to gain a much wider audience.

Again, this is important for direct marketing. If you are running a Google campaign promoting the values of your product but two lines below there is negative feedback from social media, this will have an impact on your performance.

This is not new; search for Kryptonite Lock on Google and you will see the third result is a video from January 2007, showing how the ‘unbreakable lock’ could be broken with a pen in 30 seconds. Regardless of all the good work Kryptonite will have done before and since, this video still appears.

So, these new social channels cannot be considered in isolation. The DM teams need to ensure their marketing reflects consumer sentiment.

The customer services teams need to ensure they deliver to the highest standards to ensure happy customers that don’t need to complain socially.

Unhappy customers need to be dealt with swiftly and successfully, regardless of channel. The issues and resolutions need to be shared with the marketing teams to ensure the issues and solutions are reflected in the DM campaigns. In this new social age everything you do could have a much wider impact than ever before.

Use and learn

So, the combination of ‘traditional’ direct marketing principles and the added element of understanding brand commentary can help empower social media campaigns to deliver great direct results.

The core principles of test and rollout are still paramount in these new channels, but test and rollout can only come after use and learn. The old cliché, ‘you’ve got to be in it to win it’ is still so important. If you think social media is not right for you or your brand, think again. The customer will decide that for you – are you willing to ignore your customer?

Many customers will be active on Facebook and Twitter, which have seen great success in the USA and the UK – but not in every country. Whether it is odnoklassniki in the former Soviet Union or Skyrock in France, the principles of working with social media will remain the same. So pay attention to the international networks but don’t forget the local heroes.

And don’t just stop with the big channels. For every Facebook there has been at least ten other networks that didn’t make it. Even Twitter has its imitators; Identi.ca and Plurk came and fizzled while Jaiku, the closest to Twitter’s crown, was bought by Google. You need to at least be aware of what is coming over the horizon, because it will come fast.

For those of you looking to test social media this year, make sure you are actively using it today. Whether it is established channels such as Facebook and Twitter or emerging technologies like AudioBoo, using them should be the first and most important step towards campaign success. If you don’t ‘get it’ yet, keep doing it until you do.

There are many that will call themselves social media experts – many are not very social, nor expert, so choose your partners carefully. By taking active participation in these channels you will be better positioned to understand what, if any, help you need and who can help you.

Social networks can be a strange place if you don’t know anyone – so come and find us; we’re on Twitter @dmimagazine and on Facebook (search for DMI Magazine), while I can be found most places as jamieriddell.

Come and say hello . . . and start thinking about how you can harness ’social’ in 2010.

Since 1996, Jamie Riddell has been at the forefront of UK digital direct marketing. He made his name as the far-sighted, entrepreneurial co-founder of Cheeze Ltd, now part of DMG PLC, the UK’s largest Digital Marketing Group. Now independent, Riddell comments on emerging trends of the digital market with a perspective on the business end of technology. Find him on Twitter: (http://twitter.com/jamieriddell) and on his own blog: (http://www.jamieriddell.net).