One of my New Years resolutions (a bit early, I know), is to put more effort into promoting my
Etsy shop. I have done very little in the way of promotion and have few sales to show for it. I don’t expect, nor could I keep up with, a ton of sales. But even just a few a month, to help pay for supplies, would be very cool indeed.
I’ve seen many blog posts and forum threads on promoting, but I never really sat down to figure it all out. I’ve done little bits and pieces, but taken nothing too seriously. For instance, I’ve opened a Flickr account, I twitter, and I started this blog. I don’t update any of these regularly, and certainly haven’t used them to their full potential. So, as part of this process, I will need to research and sort through the advice of other Etsians to figure out where to go from here.
I’m going to focus on one thing at a time and try to develop it fully. My plan is to share what I learn here, to help others that may be in the same place as I.
I did a quick search of the Etsy forums and it seems that a lot of people are having success increasing sales with their Flickr account. So that is where I’m going to start.
First, here’s a summary of what I found in the forums regarding promoting with Flickr:
• Consider signing up for a Pro account. Having a Pro account allows you to create unlimited collections (with the free account you can only create three). The Pro account also allows you to track where your Flickr “hits” are coming from so you know what is working and what is not.
• Update your profile. Include a description about you, your work, hobbies, etc. in your profile. Also include a link to your Etsy shop in your profile. Do NOT include any mention of Etsy or any links to your shop or items in your photo descriptions, tags, etc. Some Etsians have been known to have their Flickr accounts removed for doing so.
• Make sure the Etsy photos you upload are good quality and show off your work well.
• Use your tags wisely to help people find your items! This will help your items show up in google and yahoo image searches.
• There are over 6,000 Etsy related groups on Flickr! Join several and add your product photos to them. Here is a link that will search for groups related to Etsy… http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=etsy&m=all&page=all
• Join groups that are related to your product, but not necessarily Etsy groups. For instance, if you sell toys, join child-related groups, mommy groups, toy groups, etc.
• Upload personal photos, unrelated to your Etsy shop. Add these photos to as many related groups as you can. For instance, upload photos of your pets and vacations. Add them to dog groups, vacation or specific city groups.
• Search for photos that interest you and leave comments on them. Make it a goal to leave 5 to 10 comments a day.
• The point is to get your photos looked at by as many people as possible. By joining groups and leaving comments you increase the chances that someone will look at your photos and find something they just can’t live without!
So, what have I done so far?
• I have upgraded my Flickr account to a Pro account.
• I uploaded about 20 jewelry photos and added them to a few of my existing groups.
• I took print-screens of my Flickr stats and saved them, so I have a baseline for comparison.
• I posted comments on about a dozen pictures, one of which touched me deeply...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/smalldogs/2701965705/?
What I will be doing in the next few days:
• Finding more Groups to join. I’ll probably join a few more Etsy groups, but mostly I want to concentrate on non-Etsy groups. For me that means animal groups, travel related groups, and ???. I need to think about that some more.
• Go through all my saved photos and find ones that I think are interesting enough to share. Then upload them and add to related groups.
• Spend time searching Flickr and commenting on others’ photos.
I’ll give you an update in a few days to let you know how it goes. Hopefully I’ll have a sale or two to report.
Do you have any promoting success stories to share? Any ideas I should check out? Leave me a comment here!
~Toni
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