The other day, I was asked the following question:

“Why should the author of a product be included in their sales copy? Specifically, why do my readers need to know who I am or what I bring to the table? How does telling them my qualifications (or lack thereof) increase the strength of my copy?”

The author of the question then went on to say:

“My product solves a medical condition. But I am not a doctor and I have never had this condition myself. I’ve spent a year researching the best method to cure this condition. I have a list of 20,000 people with this condition and converse with them a lot. I know pretty much everything there is to know about this condition and have made it into an ebook.”

The answer is quite simple actually. In fact, in defending himself (i.e., that he’s not a doctor) the questioner answered his own question. Let me explain…

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Facebook is growing by leaps and bounds. If you don’t know what Facebook is, it’s a social networking site much like MySpace, but with a lot more control, flexibility, and verstility. (Check out my profile.)

But after testing it for a while, I’ve concluded that it’s not a viable marketing tool. At least, not for me. There are two reasons why using Web 2.0 social-driven sites to make money (or to drive targeted traffic) is not viable.

First, and more importantly, it’s labor-intensive. It’s a full-time affair.

I don’t pretend to be a social marketing expert by any stretch. And I’m sure that, if you are a social site junkie, you can find some pretty creative ways for using them to generate massive amounts of traffic. Some already have.

But for me, my business, and my specific target market, and like many social networking sites out there, it’s a waste of time. So if you’re not prepared on working it extensively and religiously, then I discommend it.

However, nothing stops you from outsourcing the legwork, if you’re so inclined. But there’s another good reason why I don’t recommend it…

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Some marketers “get it.”

When I wrote my free white paper, “The Death of The Salesletter,” I mentioned that the web is changing, whether we agree with it or not. Long-copy, text-only, static salesletters are slowly being replaced by more dynamic, cleaner, pithier, multimedia-based, content-driven sales messages.

One case in point is my friend Jack Humphey and his Authority Site Center. His latest product, launched today, is a membership site that teaches people how to create “authority sites” that drive traffic and sell products through content, in particular with the help of Web 2.0 websites, communities, and applications.

Jack actually offers a free report himself on this latest trend. You can download it for free — there’s a mini-video introduction that leads to an opt-in page, where Jack offers his free report, the “Authority Site Blackbook,” after you sign up.

But let me bring your attention to the salesletter for his new product, which is what I really want to focus on and what’s pretty amazing…

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