Why Are We Promoting? (OPEN FOR DISCUSSION)

[EasyLaunch]

I had a message from someone today asking why we bother promoting when there is no trending page anymore. This was my response.
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1. Many Etsy sellers still love to heart and click. In fact, Etsy calls this "click farming" where people spend hours each day posting to teams so that they can get views and hearts.
This type of activity is useless really, as it does nothing to improve your SEO. It makes people feel good to SEE that they are doing something and so people still want to play these games in the team threads. I myself do it sometimes too because you do want to stay in front of people and know you are getting views. I also feel like playing these games OCCASIONALLY is useful in that many buyers "live" on Etsy. That is, they are people like you and me. Who likes art? Artists, so getting your items seen by other Etsians is a smart idea. It may have some impact on your ranking in search results, but it would be only one factor that goes into the algorithm used by Etsy.

Now I am not some expert in Etsy's algorythym either, but I do know that my items will rank higher if 1. they are getting bought, 2. I am posting or reposting items in my shop, 3. I am using good relevant tags and titling, and 3. I have backlinks off Etsy driving people to my items. Backlinks are clicks from off Etsy traffic, like through google search or Etsy search. This is why our team tries to promote/play games on Instagram and Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and lesser known sites. Not only are you getting backlinks for higher ranking within search results, but you are also getting visibility from shoppers on off Etsy networks.

Boy I wish I could convince people of this more to get involved in our team games. But I think people may just now know.

Anyway, I hope this helps. I think also that etsy uses this strategy of ranking to entice people to buy their advertising also. I have NEVER bought advertising on Etsy and I am not worse for wear because of it either. But I am religious about working a marketing plan that is meaningful even when business is slow. I learned this skill when I was a technology business and sales development manager and recruiter. Just work the plan! The sales numbers will follow.

Another consideration is working on lesser known sites or what I call sleepers. These include google+, wanelo, keep, polyvore, we heart it, tumblr. They provide less common backlinks and ultimately there are still people on those sites potentially seeing your items. I just can't get our team members into these games for some reason. I wish people understood that you are also helping your google ranking when you are marketing in this way.

The last component here is that you ALWAYS need to be growing your networks. Just last night I followed 10 new people and I ended up with 100 extra Etsy views. If I am growing my Etsy, twitter, pinterest, instagram and facebook in kind, then it stands to reason more people will see my items and I will get more sales. This is also true if my teammates are growing their networks, I additionally benefit from our marketing games.

Oh and one more thing we should all be doing is working our updates and also video. VIDEO IS HOT right now - facebook live, youtube, Instagram - if I had more participation, I would attempt a video type of thread where we are all participle and promote one teammates live video or we have DIY demonstrations or something like that.
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Does anyone have more information to add that might be useful to the team? Please share. It helps us all! Thanks

[Former_Member]

I do not have great sales, so I am still learning. But, I do know that having a blog is one of the easiest ways to get good backlinks to your shop. I have had a blog for many years, and I find people will click on a blog link, especially on Pinterest, before they will click anything that says it is from Etsy.

I do love the sm games, however I am still not convinced how useful they are. Especially for Pinterest and Twitter if people are posting all at once, don't have a nice number of followers, or they don't interact with other non team people. It just seems useless sometimes.

I also have been adding my shops to directories. They are not search engines, and most are free, but they add a back link and people use them to find products they want. It is very time consuming, and takes months to get approved, but I am willing to do it if it helps drive sales.

I also started using manual traffic exchanges. If you have a blog and use adsense, be sure you only use manual traffic exchanges, or google will punish you. I use TrafficG, startxchange, and sealifehits. The last one not so much because the traffic is not that great.

[Former_Member]

I forgot to mention Stumbleupon, a very underused social media source. I get decent traffic from there, and sometimes amazing traffic. There are a couple of things to consider, but I wish you would do a thread for it, you can't post more than 10 items a day, and links are a pain to find. However, since not that many will play it wouldn't be an issue right away, and if you post your item and have others Stumble then no link would be needed.

[zizzybob]

I have had my blog for well over a year now. It's all about promoting online, handmade items. I have begged and pleaded on many social media sites for people to make suggestions. But in all this time I have had only 3 submissions (and one was really awful).
I started a linky party last month, in hopes that people would take 2 minutes and self promote, but that too is like pulling teeth. I really don't know what the answer is. If you read the forums, everyone is always complaining about a lack of viewership, but they will not take any steps to take advantage of so many free and easy places to advertise.

http://sweetlittlegem.blogspot.com/p/march-linky-party.html

[EasyLaunch]

@Zizzybob - I did a seminar just recently about blogging. Some main things that I learned were that you are probably GIVING AWAY your best stuff and no one cares (advertising shops and they are not vested). What is it that people on your blog can't live without? Also, do you collect email for everyone that comes to you? That should be a huge push to collect their email because when you get people who want to follow you, and you reach about 1000 followers, then you can run promotions and get better turn out if you are connecting with them regularly and bringing value to them all the time. But the main thing is what is the content that compels people to come to your blog and want to stay?

So HOW do you get to 1000 followers? Well, my advice would be go immediately to your reports on Etsy and build your email following from people who have ordered from you already. Then do some OL research on how to grow your blog... Giveaways can be helpful. Such as - whoever gets the most people to visit my blog and sign up email gets the giveaway. You can run a poll to find out what people want on your website and how they want it? Do they want a download, a product? Etc... You need to know, what do people want, so ask them. Maybe in this way you are missing the mark somehow.

The other information I collected ( I will be pursuing something myself soon) is to find a voice with your brand message. If you had to fill this in, what would you say?
Everyone _____________________can or should ___________________________.
This is how you clarify your blogs message.

Then figure out how you want to convey that message - For example, Do you want to ask several experts how they solve your message? Is your blog a platform for creating art and showing beauty in everyday life? Is it fact based? Do you want to connect with people through matters of the heart? Do you want to tell the truth about something? Are you curious to solve a problem? These are different archetypes you can pursue to convey your message.

I hope this pass along of information is helpful in some way. Blogging is hard but I think if you start and keep to your main message, the rest tends to get easier. Just make sure that your blogging is intentional and then people will want to come and guest post, advertise, and join.

[GabbysQuiltsNSupply]

The team when I first started used to do a blog activity once a week, everyone did a post and dropped the link here, everyone in turn would go to the the blogs posted and leave a comment, it forced alot of us to use our blogs, but alot of things have changed on Etsy and alot of people probably aren't even on here anymore. Note to self, delete to frenzy link :)