GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — At first it was just a passing idea that young Karim Shehadeh, 24, proposed during a chat with two of his friends. They were all trying to find a job and get out of the ranks of the unemployed, which they had found themselves in since graduating from university. Yet, with a little effort and hard work, the idea was transformed into real work that generated profits.

Shehadeh and his two friends, who graduated from various university faculties and had run out of options when it came to looking for work, decided to turn to the social networking site Facebook and use it to make money. "We decided to try it out. We told ourselves that we had nothing to lose. And with a little hard work and effort, we found success," said Shehadeh.

The three friends' idea is based on using Facebook as a tool for marketing and promotional advertising. They attract customers to clothing retailers through a Facebook page they called "Shoping.ps" to link these stores with consumers.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Shehadeh explained that they professionally photograph the clothing, and list the type of clothing, color, price and store location on the page. Facebook then plays the role of linking the site's users and transforming them into customers for the commercial shops Shehadeh cooperates with. He pointed out that, today, the page has about 96,000 likes from users in Palestine.