Standing Out

I’ve come across more than two handfuls of articles that say that small business owners are ones to haphazardly chase after new ideas, start a million things at once, try this & try that, waste money going in a million different directions, etc. We want to make money. We want to change the world with our sweet new idea. We want everyone to love and adore us for making their lives, their office, their relationships or their future that much better. But once we get our brilliant idea going a bit, our wandering eyes are distracted by that guy’s brilliant idea, and so our wheels get turning to try and figure out how we can make that successful, too.

Like it or not, these theories about the behavior or small business owners and entrepreneurs are actually very true. As entrepreneurs, it’s in our DNA to try new things, discover new ideas and work them out, and to try, try again.

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Craigslist is not dead.

It is one of those mega-sites that I figured would come in, sweep us off our feet, and then die. Why? Because the number of daily posts on Craigslist in some cities is so high that using it to find something (like a used car, or a dresser, or a babysitter) can be a nightmare!

Even so, it’s still a very useful site - even for business owners.

3 Ways to Use Craigslist

1. Location. Figure out WHERE you want to post, and depending on your business type, you may want to consider posting in a large city somewhere else. For example, your target audience may be located in California but you live in New York. No biggie. If your business is mainly online, just post in a larger city in California (or even a smaller, if you have a niche market).
2. Use images. USE IMAGES. Use images. I can’t say this enough. Listen, craigslist is really just a forum that doesn’t allow commenting. So, it can get VERY bland after awhile. Differentiate yourself from the thousands of others who won’t use any images. The best way to do it is to upload your link to a URL, and then put an <img> tag pointing to the location. If you need a place to store images, ask me. I am willing to host them on my site (first come, first serve). Remember, you use HTML in a craigslist posting, not CSS. Find a good tutorial for inserting an image tag here.
3. Use advertising language. Remember, these are ads. Ads use words like New, Now, Join, Call, Email, etc. You want to explain what you’re offering using flavorful language and a call to action.

Find a good tutorial for writing Craigslist ads here. There are some things I don’t agree with - (like not inserting images from an external source when you can upload them, because when you upload them you cannot play with the image placement in the post) but all-in-all it’s a good place to start.

Cheers! Happy posting.