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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The time has come when adver­tis­ing has in some hands reached the sta­tus of a sci­ence. It is based on fixed prin­ci­ples and is rea­son­ably exact. The causes and effects have been ana­lyzed until they are well under­stood. The cor­rect method of pro­ce­dure have been proved and estab­lished. We know what is most effec­tive, and we act on basic laws.

Adver­tis­ing, once a gam­ble, has thus become, under able direc­tion, one of the safest busi­ness ven­tures. Cer­tainly no other enter­prise with com­pa­ra­ble pos­si­bil­i­ties need involve so lit­tle risk.

There­fore, this book deals, not with the­o­ries and opin­ions, but with well-​​proved prin­ci­ples and facts. It is writ­ten as a text­book for stu­dents and a safe guide for adver­tis­ers. Every state­ment has been weighed. The book is con­fined to estab­lish fun­da­men­tals. If we enter any realms of uncer­tainty we shall care­fully denote them.

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