How to Throw a Yard Sale Using Social Media

This article describes how to leverage social media to supercharge your garage or yard sale and make a few hundred dollars in one day by selling things you do not want.

Do you have too much stuff in your house? Do you need a few hundred dollars to help lessen the blow of the economic recession?

Throw a garage or yard sale. Gather all the things you do not want or need, sort them into groups, put some thought into the prices for your things, and present them to your neighborhood for sale.

But how are you going to get people to come to your sale and BUY your things? How will you target the right people who want what you have?

How will you CRUSH IT and MAKE SURE your sale is worth your effort?

Use social media. If you build it, they will come is WRONG. Or at least incomplete. The quote should be, If you build it AND you market it, they will come.

My roommates and I threw a MASSIVE moving sale in Saint Paul, Minnesota USA this weekend. We got rid of all the things we did not want to keep as we all move on to our respective new homes. We made hundreds of dollars. And: WE HAD FUN!

(If you're not having fun, what's the point. Really. Everyone should know that by now. Come on.)

Here is how we made it happen.

1. Agree to the sale date, time, and mission. Our mission? In our case: to get rid of 90% of our material belongings so as to live a more Spartan - and hopefully more free - life.

2. Market the hell out of the sale, one week running up to the sale date:

• We posted an alluring and descriptive Craigslist ad. The ad included a Google map to the sale location, a laundry list of items to represent the diversity of our inventory, a few photos, and a dash of attitude ("MASSIVE moving sale" is better than "moving sale").


• We posted the Craigslist ad to Facebook.


• We tweeted the Craigslist ad. (And again, later, with an intriguingly insane twist!)

3. Make sure your inventory matches the tone of the marketing campaign. (A "massive" moving sale had better have a lot of stuff in it, which it did in our case.)

4. Stay PRESENT during the sale. This means demonstrating a little respect for your customers. Greet them. Answer their questions before they can muster the courage to ask. Listen. Respond. SELL. MAKE FRIENDS!!!

5. Continue your marketing efforts DURING THE SALE. How? Just be awesome. Help carry larger items to your customers' vehicles. Offer coffee to make customers feel more comfortable and at-home. Be fun. Be real. Word-of-mouth will do the rest. In our case, excellent customer service resulted in multiple compound sales referrals.

So, to recap:

How to throw a yard sale using social media? Plan what to sell; market like a hustler; be honest; execute well; and give customers something to rave about.