I did ask the Folksy team if Midlands makers could have a re-run of the regional focus, as so many makers seemed to have missed the point that only five items should be featured - there were 56 from one maker in one case. At a quick look at the Creative Cumbria feature, it seems people are still not noticing that only five items should be selected maximum from each maker in the featured region. I haven’t heard whether the Midlands makers are going to be given another go, but Cumbria seems to be following the same path and the idea clearly isn’t working. There are also makers who are not based in Cumbria, but whose work features the region, are being picked up by the tag of ‘Cumbria’ which was not what was intended. @Folksycontent If the tag each month were changed to ‘5 only 2023’ would that remind people of the max. and also avoid inadvertent pickup of items legitimately titled with the name of a region.
This is what Folksy’s guidelines were: We’re going to focus on one region each month. In May, it’s Cumbria, so if you’re based there please do tag up to FIVE of your items. This will help give everyone in the region a chance of being seen.
I think the regional focus is a great idea, but needs to be thought through and tags adjusted a bit because lots of sellers (myself included) often tag their items with the area or county in which it’s made and then of course as you said there are all the items which feature the area, but aren’t actually made there. Perhaps the tag should be nothing to do with the region at all, so that you have to tag your five especially for the feature.
I have to say, I had not seen anything regarding the 5 item restriction until I saw these posts (I’m not Midlands or Cumbria , so wasn’t participating). But I am not surprised that many people didn’t know there was a limit to the number of tags, It would seem that this needs a ‘special’ tag - would ‘Cumbria 5’ eliminate the legitimate ‘Cumbria’ tags and indicate number of tags? How are shops who do not interact with the forum informed?
I agree with you both @GlintBeads@JudyAdams it could easily be resolved simply by adding Five to the tag or #justfivecumbria.
I still think its a good idea and should continue
I also think it would be nice to give non PLUS members a monthly showcase in a similar way #fivenonplus, it is almost impossiible to be be seen as a non plus member because of the relist facility.
The guidelines are in the FB post where the list of tags is revealed but (and I have pointed this out to admin) people need to click on the ‘see more’ to actually see them so it is very easy to miss. If they are using the list from the dashboard there is no mention of the limit.
This is the first I’ve seen about this and I regularly pop in here and foll the Folksy Club house on facebook, so maybe like me lots of others aren’t aware this is happening. Also I tag lots of my items with ‘Yorkshire’. A specific tag would be good.
Does anyone else think the tags for theme of the day need to be a little less generic. For example why FLOWERS and not CHELSEA for tomorrow’s theme Chelsea Flower Show. I think we will all already have items with the tag Flowers, so Im guessing there’ll be quite a few pages tomorrow
I agree. I actually have a piece called Chelsea after the flower show but it was tagged flower not flowers as nearly all my floral pieces are. I tagged a few which are multiple flower but none of my single flowers but there are so many with the tag will be like a pinhead in a poppy field.
Generic tags are picked to give lots of variety and so they’re things that people are likely to put during normal tagging and searching. This also means there’s a better chance that there’ll be a theme to fit most people’s items so everyone gets a chance of being on the front page. The more specific a tag is, the less likely people will have put it in normal use, which would mean the theme of the day would only include items by people who make an effort to tag specifically for theme of the day, and depending on the theme, that could make some days very empty and get quite repetitive by just repeatedly seeing those few people who deliberately take part. If it was too obscure it’d also use up tag spaces that help buyers find items easier in search, which isn’t as good from a buying/selling perspective. It should help people add tags that are likely to be searched, rather than take them away.
The aim isn’t to only show a few items, but show a good selection of items on a particular theme.
When you see “Chelsea flower show” you think of flowers. Although “flowers” as a tag gets thousands of items, everything is very floral and every time you look at the page you’ll see something different, but that still fits the theme.
With the tag “Chelsea” a lot of items wouldn’t actually be flowers but of the area or the football team. Right now, there isn’t a single item tagged “Chelsea” that is of flowers, so it wouldn’t work well for the theme “Chelsea flower show”, and there are also only currently 15 items tagged that way. In general, if a tag currently has very few or no results, it won’t be chosen for theme of the day because you can’t guarantee that anyone else is going to use it. There certainly has to be enough results to fill the 8 slots on the front page, but preferably at least a page full of items to make sure it’s not overly repetitive if you visit the front page multiple times.
Thanks for the explanation Kim. I understand that the intention is to have a good variety but wrongly assumed that thousands of items would be far too many. I am one of the people you mention who try and tag appropriately and take part, as i thought that was the intention. It seems ive totally misinterpreted the Theme of the Day.
@ChristineJonesPrintmaker I feel that thousands of items are far too many. Especially when there are pages entirely filled with one maker. I use Theme of the Day in the same way you have been using it Christine. When listing a new item, I try to think what words people would use to search for that item, and tag with the maximum number of probable search terms that relate to my work. When the theme of the day listing is available, I go through it and see if any of my items are related to that theme, and if I don’t already have an item tagged with the suggested tag, then I take off one of my existing tags and replace it with the theme tag. I do this on a monthly basis as soon as the Theme of the Day List becomes available. I have been doing this based on the Folksy instructions of how to use Theme of the Day which I read through when I joined Folksy. If you have misinterpreted Theme of the Day, then I have too.
This is what I read originally, from the Folksy Blog ‘How to get featured on Folksy’
A different ‘Theme of the Day’ appears every day on the Folksy homepage. We ask our sellers for their suggestions for the themes in our Folksy Clubhouse Facebook Group and in our forum – so you can even help influence the themes we choose.
To be included in the feature, check the list of upcoming themes in your seller dashboard https://folksy.com/dashboard/themes-of-the-day and then add the tag exactly as listed to any items in your Folksy shop that fit the theme.*
All items with the correct tag will be included in the Theme of the Day. The homepage shows a random selection and this selection changes each time the page is refreshed or viewed. If you click the ‘see more’ button, you’ll see all the items in that day’s theme.
Please do make sure you only tag relevant items. If a seller is found to be misusing the tags, they may be banned from this month’s theme and future themes.
Thank you Judy, yes I have been doing exactly the same. I thought is was a showcase for sellers who wanted to join in with the theme.
I thought the Bee day was lovely, which had around 10 pages I think, and Im sure Bluebell will be too, I just thought Flower too broad a theme.
I feel a little better for you letting me know its not just me x
@ChristineJonesPrintmaker@JudyAdams Sorry if I caused confusion, I didn’t mean how you’re doing it is wrong! It’s great when people do tag appropriately and take part, and it was created with the hope that people would, but the reality is that not everyone does.
I would say it’s generally the sellers who are active in the forum/Clubhouse that are most likely to ensure their tags match the relevant themes of the day, but there are many sellers who don’t. It might be because they haven’t seen about theme of the day yet (particularly if they’re new), or they might be too busy to go through their tags or not feel it’s necessary for them, or just forgot that month.
You just need to look at the favourite piece tag, which is one that every seller can use, but there’s just over a page of items for. There are a lot more shops on Folksy than that!
The theme of the day was created to give every shop a good chance of being on the front page at some point during a month (as well as keeping it interesting and seasonal for buyers). If everyone was intentionally taking part (which would be the hope) then it’d be easier to be a little more specific, but as experience shows they don’t, in order to keep with the idea of showing as many different shops as possible, the tags have to be vague enough people would use them without intentionally doing it for theme of the day.
