Social Media Postings Mimic Classified Ads

Classified advertising in many ways is the parent of social media postings. Understanding the relationship may present an opportunity to businesses that do both.

Consider the typical classified ads from print publications like newspapers and magazines. More often than not, they consist only of text. They appear in vertical series in a column format, not unlike a social media feed.

More to the point, classified ads appeared online before the existence of social media. Newspapers in particular started dumping classified ads onto their online sites as far back as dialup bulletin boards in the 1980s. They began even before the invention of the early web browsers such as Mosaic and Netscape.

Eventually, classified ads went beyond only text and began including images. Social media postings also have made that migration, and images now are important tactics for attracting attention.

Content Connection

But wait, social media postings are about socializing, right? For people to people communicating, the answer is yes. For business to consumer, the answer is no. Businesses post information on social media to attract and keep clients.

When businesses post information online, they usually have several different types of content to present. Media companies post news, major brands post brand-related product information and PR notices, etc.

These companies use social media mostly as a marketing tool to brand the company and make people more aware of its products or services. Done carefully, they also can use it as an advertising tool to sell those products more directly to the consumer.

Social posting aren’t just “click to find out more”. They also have become “click to buy”.

It’s worth noting that Facebook frowns on what it considers “advertising” because, after all, it wants people to pay for advertising on Facebook. But the careful business can get away with writing ads that blend the line between advertising posts and marketing posts.

A business social media account gains a broader scope with more potential. It goes beyond marketing into a form of selling.

Social media managers will find it helpful to define types of posts with specific rules about how they are written.

Ads Like Social Posts

This blending of classified ads and social media postings can work on a business website as much as on a business social media account.

A business that publishes online classified ads may encourage clients to write their ads with a social media mindset. That mindset raises the limit on the number of words in the ad / post. Unlike print publications, online publications have no space limit.

A classified ad with social features can encourage people to respond to it online with questions and comments. It can have the ability of sharing and liking as well. It appears in a database that allows the entire public to see it. But that database also requires registration for interaction.

An environment with a large enough volume of ads can then become its own social media platform with built-in advertising revenue.

The old-fashioned classified ad never really went away. It just continued to evolve into new forms in the online environment.