About this story: In the coming months, The Register-Mail will look at how local residents and businesses are using social media flagships like Facebook to do everything from selling unwanted items to developing new marketing campaigns. This week, we look at a pair of Facebook pages run by local women.

KNOXVILLE — A blue toilet. Assorted Beanie Babies. Whole or half hogs bound for the Bushnell locker. A two-bedroom home in Galesburg.

And a bright blue 2011 Ford Mustang.

Those are just a few of the posts on the Facebook page “For Sale in Galesburg With No B.S.”

As Facebook changes the way we interact with each other — both people we know and those we don’t — the social media platform has developed another role: Facebook has become a place where people can create marketplaces where everything under the sun can be found for sale or auction.

Two of those Facebook pages, “For Sale in Galesburg With No B.S.” and “New Auction Bids in Galesburg & Surrounding Areas II,” are a pair of local examples of pages that have become popular.

For the administrators of “No B.S.” and “New Auction Bids,” the effort to develop and maintain Facebook pages grew out of the desire to sell and auction items online — and the decision to create a marketplace to further that goal.

It also was a decision driven by the need to earn extra money.

“My daughter Katelyn was born in 2007 — and she was premature,” Tiffney Bailey said. “I had to quit my job at Caterpillar to be able to be with her.

“My boyfriend, and Katelyn’s dad, still has his job at Caterpillar. But I wanted a way to make a little more money on the side, just to help out with bills and to have money to spend on my daughter.”

In 2007 Bailey joined a Facebook group and started selling antiques and reconditioned or repurposed items she had worked on.

“I found that there’s a big market online for antiques and nice used items,” the 36-year-old Bailey said. “So I just jumped and started the ’No B.S.’ and the ‘Kids Stuff for Sale in Galesburg’ page.

“I have to tell you, I think the page has done really, really well.”

"Really well" is clearly demonstrated by a number of statistics. The “No B.S.” page had 21,337 members as of Friday afternoon. Bailey gets between 100 and 200 membership requests a day. The page generates as many as 500 posts a day.

“I would say an average day is just over 100 posts,” Bailey explained. “During the summer — or after the tax season — the page can be flooded with posts.”

Part of the reason, according to Bailey, is that members can sell anything from once-used prom dresses to four-bedroom homes on “No B.S.”

“It’s kind of crazy — and it makes the job of keeping the page safe all that much harder,” Bailey explained. “I have three page administrators who work with me — Aaron Schofield, Rebecca Hawkins and Kim Elgin. We all work very hard to make sure we deal with buyer and seller feedback. And we try to prevent any weird stuff.”

Weird stuff?

“People have tried to post pornography — we had to call the police that time. Sometimes we see stolen items — people will alert us about stolen items being sold,” Bailey explained. “And we deal with a lot of rudeness. People can just be so rude.”

It was the desire to end some of the rudeness that prompted Bailey to start her page.

“No B.S. sums it up,” she said. “The one big downside to all of this is seeing the way people treat each other online.

“It can be pretty sad.”

The desire to auction items and to better monitor the behavior of sellers spurred Julie Jean Jones to found “New Auction Bids in Galesburg & Surrounding Areas II.”

“I’ve had an auction page for five years,” the 61-year-old Jones said. “I was involved with a page with some other people and it just didn’t work out too well.

“I just don’t like the drama and I wanted a place that I had a little more input with the direction of the page.”

After the first “New Auction Bids” page developed some technical problems, Jones forged ahead and established the page’s second iteration.

The page’s membership — a closed group— stood at 4,581 members as of Friday afternoon.

She and her husband, Mike Jones, describe themselves as “hoarders” — and they’ve long sold antiques and other items at flea markets, yard sales and garage sales.

“Mike and I both like an auction — it adds something to all and makes it interesting,” Jones said. “Auctions are fun. You can watch bids rise, and you can wonder why some items don’t sell. People will contact me and point out auctions and ask if I think an item was worth what it was auctioned off for.”

I tell those people the same thing every time: The market decides what something is worth. Everything depends on what someone else is willing to pay.”

Jones said she and her husband have struggled with a host of family health issues, and the ability to auction on Facebook has “helped pay the bills.”

“We are not making a fortune off this auction page,” Jones said. “But we do earn enough — it helps.

“And you have to understand — we have a warehouse of stuff. A warehouse. And two basements filled. And two attics. And we have a shed in the back. It got to a point where our kids asked us to start unloading all the stuff because they won’t be able to deal with it all after we’re gone.”

Like Bailey and every other administrator of a sale or auction page on Facebook, Jones doesn’t see any percentage from the auction sales on her page. She makes her money through the auctions of her items.

Imagine, if you will, a locally based eBay.

“That’s a way to look at it,” Jones said. “You can auction or you can sell.

“Really, I just liked the control Mike and I have over the page. We really work hard to keep out the arguments and the cussing and people criticizing each other or putting people down for things they try to auction. People can get pretty mean on the internet.”

The Joneses said no one should jump online and think they can earn a living wage right away selling or auctioning items on Facebook.

“Really, it’s some fun,” Jones said. “I’d like to be able to make a living at it, but it does provide us with enough to help.

“But I just don’t know how you would move the volume.”

Both Jones and Bailey urged anyone buying or selling through Facebook or any other social media site to exercise caution.

“You have to meet in public places — bring a friend with you,” Jones said. “Don’t give out a lot of information about yourself to strangers.”

There is one place in Galesburg designated for all online sales: the lobby of the Galesburg Police Department.

Located at the Public Safety Building, the GPD and the city welcome all online buyers and sellers to conduct transactions in the safety of the lobby.

Tom Loewy: (309) 343-7181, ext. 256; tloewy@register-mail.com; @tomloewy