What do you think about team promotional games?

[Former_Member]

Hello everybody! I am in some promotional teams where you fav others listing and others fav your products...you know ;)
I usually played, but know I don't, because I don't see any difference in my sales.
Most of the favourited are not real and I feel like we enter into a vicious cycle, people who see the favourited listing are the same that are playing...and I think is useless.
This is my feeling, but what do you think about it? Does these games help you to have more sales?
Have a nice day!
(...and apologies for my english )

[maydaylabels]

useless

[WhatCandySays]

If I have so much time, I will go to take more photos for my items....

[Former_Member]

Ok. I agree. Thank you so much!

[Former_Member]

I do the games that get you onto other social media sites like Wanelo, Facebook and Twitter. It helps to bring people to your shop. Has it increased sales? Maybe? I'm not sure.

But yes the threads that stay within Etsy are totally useless. I did manage to get onto the trending page for a few weeks using these threads (and that takes hours a day). I got a few grey headed faves, but even then no sales.

So the bottom line is that I would rather spend the time improving my product and my shop that faving like a robot.

[Moxiestudiodesigns]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, I am new at this and my shop is only a little over a month old. I thought the reason why we fave other shops/items and have them fave ours is to move up in the search engines. I have no sales yet and am trying anything to get ahead...

[PatsPackedCloset]

I have not joined many teams because I don't have time to sit and fav.
When I did fav others, just to fav, I saw no difference in sales or views.
But when I receive or when I notice someone has faved one of my items I do in return fav theirs.
Glad this was questioned, thanks Larritzl

[RomaMiaTradingCo]

I used to play all these stupid games, and found absolutely no difference in my store, view or sale wise.

Than I started working on m SEO (which still needs work, but its getting way better), working on my social media (Mostly Pintrest), and I saw my views skyrocket.

So if you have the time to play games, I suggest working on your store instead. It'll thank you.

[Former_Member]

Hi Beverly, I don't know if that moves up in the search engines...
My experience is only to spend time :(
Finally I decided to leave these teams

[Former_Member]

in the very beginningi played these games too and honestly i can´ t say if it got the ball rolling or not but now i no longer participate, because it takes a lot of time.
what i do however is post new listings in these teams. that goes fast because it´s just copy and paste so i can post in like 20 teams in ca. 10 minutes. i´m not saying this is the way to go but i do this like only once every two or three weeks and if it does not help, it does not hurt either .....

[BarbsBeadedJewelry]

I was wondering the same thing about whether or not to join any of these teams where you have to make treasuries. I am also new and want to do/try whatever I should to get myself off the ground and make sales. If I understand the above opinions then maybe I will just pass on the treasury type. Any advice or critique by anyone who can check out my shop would be appreciated. Should I redo my pictures? Is it my prices? I need to get seen by more buyers. How does pinterest work?

[JewelMeShop]

I used to do it often in the past but didn't see any difference. I hate favoriting items I don't like so I've stopped playing the games.
I started again this week after I've read that favorites play important role with the new etsy fp.
But I think I'll soon stop again. I stopped my day job because it was boring, I don't want to to do the same with my etsy shop...

[PamsPawsJewelry]

I am on a lot of teams and fave etc.

The nice thing is meeting some wonderful, friendly people and you are helping each other.

Some of them then put your items on their social media sites like Pinterest, Facebook, Wanelo, and Twitter etc.

Someone even contacted me about putting one of my items and a link to my shop in a blog they have somewhere.

I am still learning about the social media and started on Wanelo and Pinterest.

I don't know how people find you on any of these sites though and all the Faving on here seems to go only to other shop owners.

I do buy from other shops and some on here do but it is so hard to tap into the buyers from off of Etsy.

Your first 4 tags should match in the title supposedly for Google and search engines but the rest help move you up in the Etsy searches as does faved for your items and shop also views.

For those who just post their items in team threads and don't fave others this is noticed and it's not fair to others or your teammates. They will no longer help you out if you don't reciprocate.

When I first opened my shop in 2011 and did nothing, no teams, no faved, my shop got no views or faved. When I reopened this year I have been learning and doing everything to better my shop, seo's, photos, get help promoting, etc.

I cannot say it has gotten me sales but noticed a lot more and it's fun if you plan time wisely!

Blessings,

Pam

[maydaylabels]

The order of tags makes no difference. Views and hearts do not make any difference in search rankings unless they are directly from search (so the hearting threads don't help relevancy standings).

[PamsPawsJewelry]

You know, part of the problem on even these educational team threads is that all of us say something different!

I have read so many different things regarding this. I am passing on what I read and what would be great is if we could all know the real truth about all this.

I understand the relevancy, seo thing in theory but the rest seems varied.

Is there anywhere on etsy where it tells specifically what all this is for?

I also heard that the first four tags should be two words really descriptive of the item such as dog brooch or pet art, short and general, then the rest of the tags can be longer and in any order.

[Former_Member]

Yep Pam, SEO advice on Etsy is like a game of Telephone. :-D

I know a great deal about SEO myself, less about Etsy relevancy. I trust Mary on the Relevancy & SEO team for the REAL truth, as opposed to the version of something someone once said that's been translated into 16 different ideas by being passed along.

Sara of Ananemone has great advice on Etsy relevance.

Pick someone you trust and stick with that person.

PS. I guarantee you can get great SEO keywords using my method, which I explain on my blog:
https://cleverruthie.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/a-sweet-secret-to-seo-and-etsy-happiness/

[spacefem]

People who mindlessly click hearts are just trying to get out of thinking, IMHO.

[maydaylabels]

The Order Of Tags Does Not Matter

you don't have to worry about who to trust if you don't want to - the best thing to do is test it for yourself. Change the order of your tags on an item and see if anything happens at all. It won't.

I agree that there is a ton of bad SEO advice that is passed around on Etsy over and over. Etsy itself has said that order of tags doesn't matter, though.

[Former_Member]

The Favorites games make no SEO difference for either Etsy or Google.

There was a time when the order of the keywords in the tags was important, but like any search engine, Etsy has made changes since then and the order of the tags no longer matters.

On Etsy, the keywords that you use and the way the keywords are used makes the biggest difference in getting seen in Etsy Relevancy searches as well as on Google.

I opened a new shop on Etsy 2 months ago and without doing any promotion or marketing and only relying on SEO, I have sold 31 items. That is good for a small new Etsy shop. It can be done.