A picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth a million.  And with free online tools like YouTube and cheap video cameras like the Flip camera,  it’s not surprising video is becoming powerful tool for business.

Unfortunately, Craigslist does not yet support embedded video.  Sure, you can include a link in your post, but people are generally reluctant to click on them.

There is a neat workaround, though.  Here’s what you can do:

1.  Go to your YouTube page and take a screenshot of the video

2.  Edit the screenshot so it’s just the video screen – nothing else

3.  Host that image somewhere online.  Example: Flickr.com

4.  Create a Craigslist ad using this HTML code:

<a href=”http://www.YourYoutubeLink.com” rel=”nofollow”>
<img border=”0″ src=”http://www.YourImageLink.jpg” width=”480″
height=”295″>
</a>

5.  Post your ad

Using the above workaround, your ad will look like a video screenshot, but will actually by an image of a video which is linked to your YouTube video.  The user sees your ad, is enticed by the video pic, clicks on it to watch it, and voila!  The video plays.

Use this technique for all sorts of Craigs ads, including employment ads.

Here’s an example of a Craigslist ad I was playing with last Friday night: http://honolulu.craigslist.org/oah/com/1787869451.html