E-Media Tidbits

Classified Intelligence Report, published by fellow E-Media Tidbits contributor Peter M. Zollman (and edited by Jim Townsend), has an interesting item about Craigslist's job ads. (Sorry, no link; CIR is a paid-subscription newsletter.) They work great -- and they're free in all but three cities -- but they tend to attract a younger demographic.

The newsletter quotes a real estate executive in the Boston area as saying about placing ads on Boston's Craigslist site: "It's the No. 1. I've tried BostonWorks(.com), the Boston Globe print advertising, Craigslist. Craigslist beats them 10-to-1, and it's free. Isn't that nice?" (Craigslist does charge for job ads in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, but in Boston that's still free.)

The limitation of Craigslist, however, is that it brings in primarily younger job-seekers. Says the real-estate employer: "(Craigslist) is known among the type of people who are attracted to our company -- younger, tech-savvy. ... I think Craigslist kind of gets around that group of people by word of mouth. There may also be a sense of trust with Craigslist, because, let's face it, Craig is a kind of a guru. It's a community. So if you're (an) employer and you're advertising there, people think you 'get it.' [It's as if they think,] 'We're both members of Craigslist, the cool people are there.' If you know about Craigslist, you're hip. So I think that could be a part of it -- why it works so well."

There's that "community" word again. If newspapers want to compete with Craig -- indeed, if they want their classifieds business to survive -- they should be thinking about turning their classifieds into vibrant communities. And free ads in some categories would be nice.

Or, newspapers can just focus on serving employers who seek older workers. Oh, yeah, that'll work, right?