How To Get FREE Publicity With Craigslist

If you’re looking for a job, an apartment, a date, or people in your own community with common interests, you probably already know about Craigslist.

But did you realize you can also use these free online community classifieds and forums to promote an event, announce a new employee, advertise a workshop months before it will be held, publicize an award, announce your new book, find people to attend your events, and enhance your visibility in specific cities in the U.S. and around the world?

Just about anything you publicize in the traditional media is worth publicizing someplace on Craigslist, a trustworthy, efficient, relatively non-commercial place for folks to find all the basics in their local area. Each month, more than 10 million people generate more than 3 billion page views.

Nancy Mills, a former journalist, was telling me last week about how she uses Craigslist for publicity.

For years, Nancy was a successful publicist in Beverly Hills. Later, she moved over to the media side of the business and became a well-known freelance journalist, writing for such publications as The Hollywood Reporter and MORE magazine. Now she’s an inspirational writer for women, a workshop leader, and the founder of Spirited Woman, a very inspired woman’s empowerment community.

Nancy knows the importance of publicity–from all angles. That’s why she’s a true believer in Craigslist and thinks it’s an invaluable source of free publicity for her business. She “spins her post” from city to city, keeps her ads updated and fresh, and cherry-picks certain cities where the publicity will do her the most good, depending on what she’s promoting.

She also uses Craigslist to increase the community recognition of her business, create more sales, get better search engine optimization and localize generic news.

But using the service is a little tricky. Break the rules and you could be banned. Forget a detail here or there and you could miss out on massive exposure.

“Craigslist must be included in your company’s ongoing public relations and marketing strategy or you’ll miss out,” she says.

– Joan