{"id":6966,"date":"2009-09-10T11:54:03","date_gmt":"2009-09-10T18:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=6966"},"modified":"2021-03-16T09:40:36","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T15:40:36","slug":"2009-09-10-embed-youtube-videos-craigslist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/2009-09-10-embed-youtube-videos-craigslist","title":{"rendered":"How to Embed YouTube Videos in CraigsList"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I\u2019ve come across what was once a road-block and have created a workaround.\u00a0 With creative thinking there is always, and I mean always, more than one way to skin a cat.<\/p>\n

The issue:<\/strong>
\nCraigsList will not allow a user to embed a YouTube video.\u00a0 More specifically, CraigsList has a short list of acceptable HTML elements<\/a> and the <embed> HTML element is not one of them.\u00a0 This means that you can\u2019t “embed” any video in your CraigsList ad, thus a page visitor can\u2019t watch video residing on your page.<\/p>\n

Why this should matter to you:<\/strong>
\nIf you are an investor and\/or a Realtor, you can find great use for YouTube videos for property marketing.<\/p>\n

Google reigns supreme as the most popular search engine, they have the greatest market-share of all search engines.\u00a0 In November of 2008, YouTube (a Google company) surpassed Yahoo in search engine market share to take the #2 spot and has extended its lead margin as of July 2009 (comScore<\/a>).\u00a0 CraigsList is #7 worldwide in terms of english-language page views.<\/p>\n

By implementing two heavy hitting websites such as YouTube and CraigsList together, you will greatly increase the marketing exposure of your business.<\/p>\n

The Solution:
\n<\/strong>While you could just place a text hyperlink to your YouTube video on your CraigsList ad, this isn\u2019t very effective.\u00a0 Web users respond more to imagery than to text.\u00a0 If you simply use a text hyperlink<\/a>, chances are the end-user will skim over the link and never view the video.<\/p>\n

Currently, there is not a way to get around the <embed> HTML-element ban.\u00a0 Any inserted HTML elements, into your CraigsList ad, that are not included on the safe-list<\/a> will be stripped out at posting time.<\/p>\n

The next best tactic to embedding the video is to implement a hyperlinked image of your YouTube video in your CraigsList ad.\u00a0 This can be done as the <img> HTML element is acceptable per CraigsList.<\/p>\n

The Step By Step: Embedding YouTube in Craigslist<\/h2>\n

Please note that you can click on any image below to see it full size.<\/i><\/p>\n

1.<\/strong>Take a Screen shot of your YouTube video page.\u00a0 An easy tool to take screen-shots and manipulate them is FireShot<\/a>.\u00a0 FireShot is a screen-shot editing web-browser plugin that can be used with either FireFox<\/a> or Internet Explorer<\/a>.\u00a0 I prefer FireFox by the way. On a Mac, you can take a screenshot by pressing Command-Shift-3 OR by pressing Command-Shift-4, then selecting an area that you want a shot of.<\/p>\n

    \"YouTubeSS\"<\/a><\/ol>\n

    2.<\/strong>Crop the screen-shot so that only the video window appears and save it.<\/p>\n

      \"duncanPic\"<\/a><\/ol>\n

      3.<\/strong>You will now need to post the image to the web, you may use a site such as www.flikr.com<\/a>.\u00a0 This step is necessary because you will later need to use the URL of the photo\u2019s location on the web.<\/p>\n

        \"flikrURL\"<\/a><\/ol>\n

        4.<\/strong>On CraigsList, you will need to compose the text for your ad.\u00a0 For more attractive and colorful CraigsList ads, I recommend Postlets.<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 When you create an ad via Postlets, it is syndicated to multiple sites at once.\u00a0 Also, the site generates the HTML that can be copied and pasted into CraigsList.<\/p>\n

        5.<\/strong>After composing the ad copy with or without the beautification of Postlets, now it\u2019s time to link your screen-shot so that it appears in your CraigsList ad and links back to your YouTube video.<\/p>\n

        5a. <\/strong>You will need to grab the URL of the screen-shot (as seen in step 3)<\/p>\n

        5b.<\/strong> You will then need to insert that screen-shot URL and YouTube URL into the HTML mark-up that can be pasted to your CraigsList page.
        \n        \"YouTubePic\"<\/a><\/p>\n

        I have done the work for you below, just insert your specific URLs (red text):
        \n<a href=”http:\/\/www.YourYoutubeLink.com<\/strong><\/span>” rel=”nofollow”>
        \n<img border=”0″ src=”http:\/\/www.YourImageLink.jpg<\/strong><\/span>” width=”480″
        height=”295″>
        \n<\/a><\/span>
        \n6.<\/strong>Paste your specific HTML markup into your CraigsList ad (both red and blue text)<\/p>\n

        7.<\/strong>Once the CraigsList ad is published, it can look like the following:<\/p>\n

          \"DuncanCLpic\"<\/a><\/ol>\n


          \n8.<\/strong>Or if you decided to use Postlets with your ad, it can look even more polished as shown below:<\/p>\n

            \"DuncanPostlets\"<\/a><\/ol>\n

            <\/strong><\/p>\n

            Conclusion:<\/strong>
            \nTo the common user, the YouTube video will appear to be embedded.\u00a0 By mimicking the embedding of your YouTube video into CraigsList, you are sure to see an increase in your marketing response rate as comprehensive property information is conveyed to buyers both in written and visual form.\u00a0 The redirect of users to your YouTube page will create more exposure for your targeted property as well as other properties that you may have YouTube videos for on your profile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

            I\u2019ve come across what was once a road-block and have created a workaround. With creative thinking there is always, and I mean always, more than one way to skin a cat.<\/p>\n

            The issue:<\/strong>
            \nCraigsList will not allow a user to embed a YouTube video. More specifically, CraigsList has a short list of             acceptable HTML elements<\/a> and the <embed> HTML element is not one of them. This means that you can\u2019t “embed” any video in your CraigsList ad, thus a page visitor can\u2019t watch video residing on your page.<\/p>\n

            Why this should matter to you:<\/strong>
            \nIf you are an investor and\/or a Realtor, you can find great use for YouTube videos for property marketing.<\/p>\n

            Google reigns supreme as the most popular search engine, they have the greatest market-share of all search engines. In November of 2008, YouTube (a Google company) surpassed Yahoo in search engine market share to take the #2 spot and has extended its lead margin as of July 2009 (comScore<\/a>). CraigsList is #7 worldwide in terms of english-language page views.<\/p>\n

            By implementing two heavy hitting websites such as YouTube and CraigsList together, you will greatly increase the marketing exposure of your business.<\/p>\n

            The Solution:
            \n<\/strong>While you could just place a text hyperlink to your YouTube video on your CraigsList ad, this isn\u2019t very effective. Web users respond more to imagery than to text. If you simply use a text             hyperlink<\/a>, chances are the end-user will skim over the link and never view the video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":444,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5529],"tags":[340,2439,2438,605,1031,927,1827],"class_list":["post-6966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-real-estate-marketing","tag-craigslist","tag-embed","tag-fireshot","tag-marketing","tag-real-estate-marketing","tag-videos","tag-youtube"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/444"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}