Can you use direct marketing on social networking sites? There's no doubt that direct marketing, perhaps using an anonymous or visibly impersonal account, aimed at advertising a product on social networking sites is definitely a bad more from every perspective. But can social media marketing benefit from direct marketing? The key thing is probably to first build a relationship of trust with the social networking site users and not just dive in straight away with sales messages. Once the relationship has been established and you've won the confidence of users, then more direct messages designed to sell products will be accepted by the community, because trust has been established. But if you think that social media marketing can be used in the same was as direct marketing, identifying target markets and sending out direct sales messages... Well, you are very much mistaken and any social media marketing strategy that you come up with will crash and burn.