Local Deals is our online application that extends newspaper classifieds into social media and mobile devices.

Here’s how it works:

1. You send us a digital feed of your classified ads.

2. We post your ads in our Local Deals application on Facebook. See it here. Users can “like” the ads, share them with their friends, post them to their own Facebook wall, and e-mail them to other people.

3. A message is automatically posted to your newspaper’s Facebook and Twitter accounts saying you just added “new deals.” Readers can click a link to see your ads.

4. We automatically create a version of your classifieds that’s formatted for mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad and Blackberry. Look at it on your cell phone here.

FAQs

BUSINESS
How do I make money from this?
However you like! You could upsell your classified customers for each ad posted (“For an extra $2.99, we’ll put your ad on social media and mobile phones.”) You could make it a forced buy for all your classifieds. Or you could offer it at no cost as an added benefit for your classified customers, helping you keep your classifieds on the leading edge of technology so you sell more ads over time. It’s entirely up to you.

What are the ad rates?
You set the rates on your own. You pay us a flat fee for the service, and you can charge your classified customers whatever price you think is right. You know your market.

Does Green Shoot Media get a cut of the ad revenue?
Nope. Our customers keep 100% of the revenue they generate.

Is this something that could compete with newspapers?
No. There’s already one Craigslist, and it’s doing perfectly fine on its own.
When you sign up for Local Deals, part of the agreement is for Green Shoot Media to not sell or accept third-party classifieds for the site. The only classifieds that appear are the ones that are directly posted by you, our customers. In fact, your newspaper’s contact information is at the top of every page so readers will know to contact you to buy ads.

SOFTWARE
How do I enter the ads?
Ads are sent to us via a digital feed, typically in XML format (although we’ve gotten others to work, too). E-mail a sample of your feed to sales@greenshootmedia.com, and we’ll talk with our developers to see if we can make it work.

How do our readers find the ads?
There are several ways. When someone interacts with your ads in Facebook, other people will see it in their friends’ Facebook stream. They could also find the ads by seeing the messages in your Twitter and Facebook page feeds. And one of the best ways is to post a link to your Facebook ads on your newspaper’s homepage. Newspapers that do a good job promoting Local Deals with house ads and Web site links will have the best results.