Oodle CEO on Facebook Marketplace and Social Classifieds
Click here if you prefer to listen to the MP3 – Oodle CEO Talks Facebook Marketplace
We all know that the world is becoming more social. There is a little site called Facebook that is connecting us like never before and is becoming a go to resource when we want to know whether our friends think we should by a product or invest in a service. Oodle.com is looking to take the new social media space we are living in and merge it with the classifieds. Honestly, haven’t we all been a little reluctant to list something on Craigslist because we thought someone may show up to buy a futon and end up asking to lick our toes? The combination of Oodle and Facebook Marketplace have given consumers a safer, more open place to buy and sell products online and yes that includes real estate!
I spoke with Oodle’s CEO Craig Donato about the ability to bring a more social classifieds experience to consumers and how his company is filling that void. Craigslist hasn’t evolved from a user experience standpoint ever. They are sticking with their interface and have obviously had some bad PR when it comes to the freak factor. What Oodle is doing differently is bringing listings to a place on the web where we all feel more comfortable, Facebook. Facebook Marketplace has grown from 1 million to over 10 million users in the last 12 months. I personally have just over 1,000 friends and 282 of them have registered for Marketplace. By seeing what are friends “like” as we browse it does bring a more sound sense of security. Craig loves the way that you can really meet the person behind the product you are buying and just like an Ebay, make sure they are legit before reaching out to contact them.
One of our favorite real estate brokerages and fellow Inman 2010 Innovator Nominee The Good Life Team from Austin, TX has set up many of their listings in Facebook Marketplace and I must say that I was impressed. The profile page includes their listings, branding but also a link to check out their Good Life Team Facebook Page so that someone considering reaching out to them can do some homework before doing so. I know I research just about anything I buy these days online including items that cost $99, much less a $300,000 hip urban condo! The ability to check out someone’s profile or page to see their legitimacy before you make contact should provide a security blanket that is obviously missing over in Craigslist. Many times our goal is to drive people to our website, but when there is such a high comfort level and time on the site over on Facebook why not bring the homes there?
Oodle offers one listing for free and then has a Pro Option that is priced out per listing on a monthly basis which you can check out here.
I really feel like Craig, Oodle and the Facebook Marketplace are on to something here in an effort to make the classifieds more transparent/social and when I see a tech savvy group like Krisstina Wise and the Good Life Team leveraging a new technology I always know it is worth a second look.
Feel free to leave any comments or questions for Craig Donato, CEO of Oodle.com, below.
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I really wish I could link from the Oodle ad directly to the specific page of my website for each property. I was told the links in the descriptions were disabled because of people directing consumers to malware sites, but since I am a paid customer, shouldn’t there be a way to have a “learn more” link?
I really like Marketplace! I build facebook business pages for Realtors and small businesses. When I tried to add Marketplace to one of the pages it wants access to all the pages I administer. That seems a bit invasive for the clients that don’t use Marketplace. Why the need to have access to all of them?