Transacting Safely In Craiglist

Published on: 21 August 2017 Last Updated on: 16 August 2019

Craigslist is used by many to buy and sell stuff due to its simple interface. You can find almost anything on it. However, due to the large scale of transactions occurring, it is hard to keep track or even find out the credentials of the parties to the sale or the authenticity of the things being sold.

To help you in maneuvering around the site, here are some tips for a safe and meaningful experience on Craigslist.

Conceal Your Identity

In Craigslist, you are given an option to either use your true email address or use the one provided by the site itself. Choose the latter. It’s safer to use the proxy e-mail as it can prevent scammers from accessing your real e-mail address.

However, when you respond to someone, your true e-mail will then be exposed. You can opt to create an e-mail solely for Craigslist. Use ones from Mailinator, Gish Puppy, etc. to hide your true identity and preserve your anonymity.

In addition, do not reveal your location or residential place. Always remember to remove geotags from the photos before you put them on Craigslist. Thieves and scammers can use programs that can read the information on location that are hidden in the file header. For starters, use the EXIF geotag removal app before posting online.

Aside from contact details, do not also give in to requests that can reveal any personal or financial information. Some scammers will ask you to submit “credit checks” and such is a big no-no since they can get credit card information from it. Money wiring services is also often used by scammers.

The best way to handle Craigslist transaction is by meeting in person and using cash or PayPal as a mode of payment.

To See is To Believe

Never buy something in Craigslist without seeing it personally. Scheming sellers can get photos online of items in good condition when in reality, the one they are selling is not in top shape anymore. You see this a lot when people sell their iPhone’s and you will be disappointed to see a different item when you receive it via courier.

When you do meet the buyer or seller, make sure that you are in a public place. Coffee shops, restaurants, and other places with lots of people are good locations to do the transaction. It is also advisable to bring a friend who will act as a witness to the entire sale. Do not leave your cellphone behind and make sure that at least one friend or relative knows when and where you will meet the buyer or seller.

Craigslist actually recommends that parties deal in person by advising sellers and buyers to deal with people locally whom they can meet in person.

Not A Dating Website

Though some people do it, Craigslist is not the best place to find potential dates. There are other free dating sites like Plenty of Fish and OK Cupid, plus applications like Tinder, that you can use to find a date. These sites and apps have specialized privacy and security settings that are just not available in

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4 Lessons Content Marketers Can Learn from E-learning Courses

Content marketing is one of the most dynamic marketing disciplines because it involves engaging consumers through a piece of content you create for boosting website traffic and sales for your business. This isn’t easy to achieve because consumers constantly change, meaning that the parameters for creating good content that will engage them to change accordingly. This is one of the key reasons why content marketers need to keep themselves up-to-date with the latest techniques and learn the right way to approach content creation. In this article, we will talk about what content marketers can learn from online courses. If you are not convinced, stick around for a while and learn about the connection between content marketing and elearning courses. 4 Lessons Content Marketers Can Learn Through E-learning Make sure that your writing is concise and absolutely clear and leave no room for readers to misunderstand it. The content that you put out should be easily understood by everyone reading it, and give readers a sense that they are accomplishing and learning something important. Here is the name of four lessons that content marketers can learn from eLearning courses. 1. Being Topic Relevant And Staying On Topic Learning courses include relevant and meaningful content that engages learners and motivates them. The same logic can be applied when creating content for marketing purposes. You need to include specific information that will engage the audience. Consumers will be deeply engaged in your content if they find valuable information that revolves around the general topic. If you are providing information that is not closely related to the topic or simply talking about unimportant things, they will lose interest in your content. So, make sure that you don’t lose perspective and stick to the main topic. This is not always easy to do because of the fact that you simply won’t know what people would like to learn from your content. Working hard on putting yourself in the shoes of your target audience is essential in order to create engaging and concise content. 2. Segmenting Content And Giving Readers The Freedom Apart from the fact that you need to create content that can be intriguing to your target audience, you also need to give them the option of exploring your content the way they see fit. Elearning is effective because learners create a hypothesis and they try to prove it. You must allow people to navigate through your content, test ideas, and give them the time to make their own conclusions. By segmenting content into clear paragraphs and subheadings, people will also be able to decide on their own which information is new to them, and which isn’t. For example, if we are talking about an instructional blog post, a reader can quickly skip over the steps they know already and find the information they are looking for. Try as best as you can to avoid creating linear content that has no scope for interactive involvement. Let your learners choose what they want to learn. For instance, online management training courses give learners the option to make choices that will affect their training outcome. Although you don’t have the option of allowing too much freedom and action, you should look to simulate similar structures within your content. 3. Building Engagement On An Emotional Level People whom you are targeting with your content need to have those elements that resonate with their personalities. A person won’t be able to learn if that learning content doesn’t engage that person emotionally in a positive way. The same rule applies to content marketing as well. In order to be effective and keep the target audience engaged while being memorable, it needs to invoke positive emotions in those consumers. If a person thinks that some information is unimportant, they will probably not remember it. You need to learn a lot about your target audience and fight some broad characteristics that most of them share. For example, you can use their job or level of education to your advantage and include relatable information within your content that will have them connect with what they are reading or looking at. 4. Make Your Content Digestible Simplicity is the key in content marketing and this doesn’t mean that you shouldn't focus on some more complex topics. Always explain them in the easiest possible manner. Learning courses always try to deliver knowledge in a simple and understandable way, and your content should be similar. First of all, make sure that you split up your long paragraphs for added clarity. Include bullet points, divide information, and highlight information that is essential. This way, you won’t exhaust your readers and allow them to digest your content, piece by piece. It is also important to learn the right type of content for explaining certain topics and not to stick bluntly to one type of content just because it is easier for you. Use charts, infographics, pictures, illustrations to quickly explain something without having to write long paragraphs that have the potential to be misunderstood. Wrapping It Up: The business management training can be very complex and it slowly introduces learners to the terms and techniques until they have all the knowledge they need to participate in advanced training lessons. These are the key features of eLearning courses and the main reasons why they are so effective at teaching people. Engaging people in your content and allowing them to memorize it quickly is vital in content marketing, and these above-mentioned four things will help you achieve that without fail.

Marketing

How to Monitor Your Brand?

On the Internet, to be particular on social media, everyone and anyone can share views about your brand. One thing you need to understand is that this information will reach a vast audience. Most of the information that people share on social media go viral. Brand monitoring is the best way forward if you want to keep on top of this information. What is brand monitoring? Brand monitoring refers to the process of monitoring several channels to find out various mentions of your brand and asses what people have to say about your products or services. It can include complaints on social media or a newspaper article about a merger, among other things. The role of brand monitoring is to respond and act on the mentions you get. It can assist you to jump on good publicity or spot a crisis before the situation worsens. It will also give you valuable insights on how the market views and talks about your products. We can also define brand monitoring as a business analytics process that monitors various channels on the media or web. It helps users to get information about the brand, products, and all the things that are connected to your brand. It will allow you to monitor the reception and reputation of your brand by your target demographic, consumer base, and the general public. You have to strategically and regularly investigate online resources and media to help you react to the various sentiments your brand and of your competitors experience. You have to proactively monitor the reputation of your brand and react to customer and press concerns to enhance trust in your brand. Why do you need to monitor your brand mentions? Identifying and Addressing Infringers: These people always look at the popularity and name of your brand to ride on it. Web monitoring will help you to identify these infringers who adopt confusing domain and brand names that resemble yours. Trademark law protects brand owners and consumers against such unfair competition. The good news about brand monitoring is that it will help you to enforce this practice. Addressing Consumer and Competitor Protection: Brand monitoring will help you to respond to both positive and negative sentiments from consumers. Most customers express their feelings on complaints, sites, forums, or social media. Also, it will help you to monitor the competition representation of your brand in terms of negative reviews and comparative advertising. What monitoring tools are there on the market? The market has so many social media monitoring tools that you can use to track your mention. Some of them include; Famm.io Famm.io is one of the best social media and web monitoring tools. It is an effective tool if you want to know what people think about your brand. The tool will show you the resources where your brand is mentioned most of the time. It will show you the best resource when it comes to brand mentions. Find out the places where people just watch and where people communicate most of the time. LexisNexis Print media and tracking broadcast are quite tricky unless you have people reading all the newspapers and watching all channels. LexisNexis is one of the best tools for monitoring these two elements. They will assist you in tracking mentions on several publications and in analyzing the results. Source LexisNexis is a big organization, which helps some of the biggest brands explore analytics, data, reporting and monitoring. It helps in identifying the quickest trends and news breakouts (viral content) and informs brands of advertising opportunities. The smart and easy interface helps brands understand metrics and take detailed steps as to the nest strategies. Google Alerts Google Alerts is an easy and free social media monitoring tool. You will need to input a keyword and you will get an alert when a person uses it on the website. It offers mentions but has no long-term overviews and analysis. Google Alert is an absolutely free tool that will help you get mentions about your brand in a small, yet significant way. Please do not expect this tool to be as powerful or potent as some of the best ones on the list. It is free and should be expected to be basic. TweetDeck This tool is great for community managers who use Twitter but also does brand monitoring through Twitter. Setup search columns to give you live feed once the things you specify get mentions. A free tool is ideal for brand mentions. This was an independent tool, which was later acquired by Twitter. This is a great platform to align your Twitter mentions and activities. The dashboard is clean, precise and easy to use. Once you start using TweetDeck, it will be difficult for you to go to other platforms like HootSuite, Buffer or anyone else. Why Famm.io stands apart from the crowd? Over the last three years, I have used several brand-monitoring tools on the market. What makes Famm.io stand out is the multi-functional capabilities. You are not only allowed to see your brand but also integrate content resources and competitor strategies in your dashboard. If you are looking to run Influencer Marketing campaigns, Famm.io helps you find your brand mentions not only on search but also on social. However, for me personally, the best part about Famm.io is the possibility to reach out to different Content Creators. You can look for content creators, not only in your niche but also in different niches. The capabilities of Famm.io can help your brand manage its online reputation in a successful manner. It can also help you reach disgruntled users or employees before they can do too much damage. This will help brands maintain good relations with their audiences and tackle PR nightmares before they get too big. Conclusion: Brand monitoring became a trend in a recent couple of years. It brings value as a marketing and PR component as well as a steady approach for brand awareness strategy. What can be more important than benefits for users, a brand’s value and its reputation? Overall, tools enumerated above are trustworthy enough and good for analysis and building marketing strategies and social media campaigns. All of these online assistants insulate from the needless search offering the selection of on-demand features. Read Also: Winning Tactics To Build A Competitive Service Delivery Website Reasons Why You Should Implement Wireless Monitoring System

Shouldn’t On-Demand Workers Get Workers’ Compensation?

Things have changed significantly for American workers in recent years. More and more Americans are working not as employees, but as independent contractors. Some people call it contracting or freelancing, but the implications are always the same - a worker is hired for a particular service and is paid a rate (hourly or per job) for that service. While working as an independent contractor might be the preferred choice of some workers, it is more often than not an arrangement born out of necessity, facilitated by a growing sea change in the relationship between labor and business. Contractors might have a bit more freedom in the way they do their jobs but, as many freelancers have discovered, there are plenty of drawbacks to working as an independent contractor. They pay their own taxes, lack many of the benefits associated with full-time employment and - perhaps most concerning - they aren’t protected when it comes to injuries suffered on-the-job. It’s this lack of compensation for workplace injuries that brings us to a growing discontentment for a large subset of independent contractors - on-demand workers. What is an On-Demand Worker? On-demand workers are the people who pick us up when we hail a ride with Uber. They are the workers who come clean our house or fix a leaky pipe when we book someone on our Handy app. In short, on-demand workers are those that spring into action when we request a service from a company that relies on freelance labor. The “Ride-Share” Economy’s Impact on Workers Every few weeks or so, you’ll find a news story or press release about another company that wants to become the Uber of something. Handy wanted to become the Uber of household cleaning. Cargo wanted to become the Uber of shipping. The list goes on and on. The financial success and the immense popularity of ride-share services have prompted companies to look for ways to incorporate the ride-share business model into other services, and many of them have been successful in doing so. These “on-demand” services are not just popular in the business community, they are popular with consumers, too. In many cases, the services offered by the new breed of businesses are more affordable and, in some cases, more responsive to a customer’s needs. It might be tempting for consumers to think of these services as a much more direct way to communicate with someone who is providing the service they need. The truth, however, is a little more complicated than that. The driver who picks us up, or the handyman who comes to fix our sink, is working on contract through the business who runs the app we use to summon them. The money that we pay that worker is divided between the worker and the business they work for. Many of these businesses have requirements that their workers must meet before they can do their job. Workers don’t have the level of control over their jobs that one would typically associate with an independent contractor, yet they are provided at the same level of benefits. In other words, they are provided with no benefits. Read also: Making Your Office Safer for Workers No Security for On-Demand Workers On-demand workers can suffer injuries just like any other subset of workers. A high percentage of workplace injuries are transportation-related. Many workers suffer injuries while moving goods or traveling for work. When you consider the fact that on-demand workers spend a good deal of their time in transit from one job to another (or, as is the case with drivers for ride-share services, all of their time in transit), it’s no surprise that these workers face just as many, if not more, hazards while on the job as those who are considered to be employees. To zero in even more on just how dangerous some of these jobs can be, let’s look at taxi drivers and chauffeurs, whose jobs are virtually identical to Uber and Lyft drivers. Taxi drivers and chauffeurs have fatality rates five times those of the average worker. On-demand drivers face the same risks - vehicle accidents, violent attacks - yet they aren’t given the financial security that other workers receive. If an on-demand worker is injured on the job, the company that they work for will not be held accountable for the injuries of their workers. That worker will be left without the security that so many of us enjoy as a fundamental right. They work just as hard. They observe the requirements set out by the company that employs their services, yet they are guaranteed nothing when something goes wrong. Contractors “In-Name Only” Understandably, many on-demand workers are growing increasingly dissatisfied with their classification as independent contractors. This is evidenced in a number of lawsuits in which workers are seeking to be treated with the same rights and benefits as other types of workers. This has been happening in the trucking industry for some time, an industry that has shifted from one heavily reliant on employed drivers (who used to be more likely to be union members) to one of the independent workers, and this industry suffered major labor shortage as a result. In one high-profile lawsuit, an appeals court found that FedEx incorrectly classified their drivers as contractors, despite the fact that FedEx required workers to wear FedEx uniforms, drive FedEx vehicles, and groom themselves according to the standards of FedEx. While on-demand workers face slightly different requirements from their companies, the principle is very much the same. The question is: How much can a company ask of you before they should give you the same rights as their “employees” are afforded? The answer is that you can ask only so much from a worker before they are essentially a contractor "in-name-only.” It’s becoming clear that companies are taking all of the advantages they can out of the “contract” relationship they have with workers while providing none of the benefits that they would give their employees. Unfortunately, this means a lack of workers’ compensation benefits for on-demand workers. The Implications for Consumers On-demand services might seem like a great thing for consumers, for now, but there are many ways in which the relationship between workers and their companies will begin to seep into the quality of the services consumers are currently enjoying. If companies providing on-demand services fail to provide workers with adequate benefits, they will face the same challenges as the transportation industry, which is struggling to keep high-quality workers who will find more benefits and security in other labor markets. In other words, on-demand suppliers will eventually get what they pay for and, by extension, so will consumers. In that respect, the lack of protection for on-demand workers is bad for business, not just for the workers themselves, but for consumers as well.

Transacting Safely In Craiglist

Conceal Your Identity

To See is To Believe

Not A Dating Website

Oh, Crop! Killer E-commerce Mistakes You Need to Conquer

What Can I Do To Make My Company Website More Profitable And Powerful?

Content Rally

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

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4 Lessons Content Marketers Can Learn from E-learning Courses

How to Monitor Your Brand?

Shouldn’t On-Demand Workers Get Workers’ Compensation?

Transacting Safely In Craiglist

Conceal Your Identity

To See is To Believe

Not A Dating Website

Share this Article

Oh, Crop! Killer E-commerce Mistakes You Need to Conquer

What Can I Do To Make My Company Website More Profitable And Powerful?

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

Leave a Reply

Popular

Follow Us

Recent

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