I created this thread after hearing sellers frustrations and because I thought we could all come together to discuss ideas to help improve the brand awareness. I think there have been some honest and interesting suggestions.
Folksy is lacking brand awareness and that isn’t something either they or us should
ignore! There needs to be a balance between a number of different activities to enhance the Folksy profile.
Magazines need both traditional and online content. Folksy could easily ask certain magazines what themes they are working on in features and offer up feature articles that include content about makers who are on Folksy. There’s enough different craft traditions on Folksy to keep magazines supplied with content.
Even if regions are wide spread that shouldn’t be a reason not to work together perhaps by County. So for example for The Midlands there is no reason why that couldn’t be split in to makers of Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire etc. Perhaps we need regional PR groups made up of Folksy sellers who identify opportunities in the region. So for example there is a Worcestershire handmade group. I along with other sellers could promote ourselves and folksy there. I know quite a few years ago Etsy was encouraging people to work together in local areas. Not sure how successful that has been. But a pop up Folksy event featuring different sellers under the folksy banner shouldn’t be something to dismiss.
There are ways in which we the sellers can promote ourselves independently and together but ultimately the brand that we all sit under needs to be supporting us. When was the last time we had access to new marketing materials? I agree with the others that these days with new digital printing solutions it could work out more economical to have access to some joint marketing materials such as flyers and postcards.
We need to seriously address the words “I’ve never heard of Folksy” and the only way we can do that is by coming up with solutions together.
Sorry, Joy, I was trying not to be too wordy…
There is a game played mostly on mobiles/tablets etc that is very popular worldwide, especially, I believe, with ladies. In the game, you can watch an advert in order to gain help with the game. These ads appear to be locally/nationally targeted and mostly do not look professionally produced or expensive. This thread seems focussed on social media, perhaps there are other additional avenues where the public at large can be informed of Folksy’s existence?
ETA, I tried to post this reply yesterday evening and thought I had but logged in this morning to find it sitting at the bottom of the page…
I’ve been following this thread as I reopened my shop at the beginning of the year. I have only been adding links to here in social media unless its a specific E… group. But I feel frustrated at the few sales I’ve had on here - I think its totalled 13 for the year against 172 on E… and I had that shop closed for a month.
Earlier in the year we had a similar discussion, and @FolksyStaff created logos in canva that we can use on our pictures on social media - initially I saw a lot of this, but now very little (of which I’m guilty of too!!)
I see a lot of TBCH paid promotion posts and Etsy show casing sellers items - I have no idea the cost but I wouldn’t of thought these are too expensive.
I was really hoping I could make this work as I like it here, and then I could start and let my Etsy shop run down, but sadly I’m not even close. I have invested a lot of time being part of this community for very little return. For me this is part of my wages not just a hobby.
I was looking at TBCH last night and they include paid advertising as part of the membership. Its a few pound more than Folksy but that obviously factors in the contribution to advertising. You can’t list as much on their basic membership tier but theres no point in having listings if know one is seeing them anyway.
I like Folksy as a platform and I really don’t understand why its so hard to get the brand known.
Interestingly, there was a post last night from TBCH on the Buy British Made Facebook page.
I also searched the page for any mention of Folksy and found a link to the site kindly posted by a seller back in January. It had 65 shares!
Although the frustrating thing is they could probably get a grant to help them get a stand plus a small stand can often be gotten at last minute at some trade fairs at a cheaper price because they want to fill the space.
The thing standing between Folksy being known and unknown as far as I can see is… money… Advertising works.
Of course it does. Why does every company and its mate pay for advertising if it doesn’t. I pay (not a lot but just enough so the world knows i exist) and mine works.
Of course if you are lucky you get unpaid advertising too… I just sold a sailboat… by a really weird coincidence 
it was tagged and linked to my shop by @WhimsicalBells on Friday. Thanks very much Lou 
I so love your crochet. I do wish I had a baby (well someone else’s obviously ) to buy a matinee jacket for
Thank you 
that’s so kind
I so wish I’d had more sales on here - the fees have cost more than I’ve made
I’ve joined the Buy British Made group, I had not heard of it beforehand
This post has made me relook at TBCH - I have looked before but came here.
I expect quite a lot of sellers here would happily pay an extra few £ if it was for advertising.
I would happily pay the TBCH fee downside is they like you to do the yearly option to include you. £120 is a lot when you don’t know what return you’ll receive - or it’s a lot to me
Yea! A win for Folksy Friday! . Congrats on the sale. Cheers Lou
No, I hadn’t heard of it until Caroline @Caroleecrafts mentioned it at the top here. I have joined, it looks like there is a lot of interesting stuff on there and I think might be worth posting about our shops and/or Folksy.
@JOYSofGLASS My post was made from my personal account because it was intended as my personal opinion as a seller, the same as the rest of you, rather than an official answer from Folksy of exactly what happens.
Obviously as I also work for Folksy I may have more insight into some of what happens, but I don’t work in marketing or social media, so I don’t know all of the specifics relating to this and can’t give a definite Folksy answer without speaking to those that do (which would then come from my staff account - I purposefully try to keep these separate so I can still enjoy and use the forum personally).
Again, I don’t know exactly why some shops may be tagged and others not, but from personal experience posting for art events, I do know that sometimes it can take a long time trying to find the right accounts (if they even have an account) to tag, and even once you’ve found them, mainly on Facebook it can sometimes be really difficult to get the right tag to come up. On Instagram the issue I came across more was that some people don’t allow their account to be tagged. It’s not always simple and quick to get a complete set of tags, and sometimes may not be possible.
Sorry I mustn’t have been clear enough with what I said for TBCH. I don’t see their posts because I don’t like/interact with them. I presume I don’t see their ads because I’m not in their target audience - that doesn’t specifically mean because I do/don’t like their page, just that I don’t match whatever conditions they’ve set, which can be different things depending on the company or different for each ad. Or it it was very vague there could be a really large possible audience and the ad cost just got used up before it got to me.
But I understand that just because I personally don’t see the promotion, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist (personally I have seen some Folksy ads in the past when browsing Facebook/Instagram, but I’m afraid didn’t get any screenshots at the time).
True Folksy don’t generally do that kind of promotion year round, but target it for when it will have the most impact to help keep fees low. TBCH have much higher fees in order to be able to do more promotion (as I have a larger shop it’d cost me almost £1000 a year to list what I have here). Different sites prioritise different things which lead to them working a little differently.
Sorry, again I don’t know the specifics about the promotion (whether it was an ad, boost, what platform) but that we all decided it was important that it wasn’t only sellers that were targeted, so there was promotion aimed at both. As you know the Folksy team contains sellers so we understand ourselves the frustrations there would be if everything was aimed at sellers and try to ensure there’s that balance. The site doesn’t work without buyers, but we also have to work within a limited budget which can restrict things.
As you mention from your look at the recent social media posts, only a third were aimed at sellers and two thirds were aimed at buyers, so it’s certainly not that Folksy are only focusing on getting more shops. Getting buyers on the site is very important, but once the buyers are here they want enough choice to find something to meet their needs/taste, or if they’re a regular user they might want to see something new, so there does have to be a bit of both.
@KusumaDesigns There are Folksy local groups (yours would be Folksy West Midlands), and these were originally made with the hope that it would make it easier for sellers to promote and help each other within their local area as you suggest, and maybe eventually lead to organising things like in person markets that would help get the Folksy name out in the local area. Currently there are only 7 people on the Folksy team (mainly part time), and organising in person events can take a lot of time, local knowledge and man power, so having active local teams that can assist would be really helpful in making things like that happen. Although the local teams do exist, unfortunately recently Folksy haven’t had time to concentrate on developing these, and many have gone quiet as they’ve struggled to get team leaders as people don’t have the time to commit. Hopefully they’ll be able to grow again in the future.
Hi Kim
I’m not disagreeing with you at all . Just saying how I see things are from my side as you do from yours .
I see people on here time and time again say they are not selling anything and want to know why. It is a frequently recurring topic. All the tags and free SM promotions in the world will not get them sales . Personal SM reach has to be built up and that can take time. If people don’t find the site they are selling on they won’t sell, which is why I am quite clear that paid promotion is required.
I do need to correct your £1K figure though as it is unfair to TBCH to have that stated there. You can get a lot more than 100 products into 100 listings if you make use of excellent option facilities and the Standard package, with all bells and whistles, for that is £300 not £1000. I have almost 300 different pieces in my 100 Standard listing shop. Those 300 pieces are separately listed here as the variation facility is too basic for me.
Have @FolksyStaff ever done things like bite-size radio advertising? 
I appreciate that Folksy is a micro company without the budget of a big company like E*** BUT!!! Folksy are happy to take extra money from sellers for a Folksy PLUS account, so they really should be putting a portion of this money into promotion to drive people onto the site. Simple pay-per-click promotion or hiring a marketing company.
One idea to get lots of traffic to the site at minimal cost…
Contact colleges/universities that offer marketing/search-engine-optimisation courses, and run a ‘design a campaign’ competition. Put up a prize for the person that drives the most amount of new clients onto the site…
Caroline, that’s a great idea. Imagine if we all used packaging tape saying Folksy on it, look how Amazons packaging advertises them through the postal system.
I sold a couple of items of repainted furniture on E and because of their advertising costs ie if they choose to promote your item and it sells through that promotion, you have to pay a high advertising fee. I ended up with such a small amount from my sale, that I left. So for me there is a balance, I agree that some form of paid advertising should be done, but also I don’t want it to be as costly as E***, so I guess you won’t get the level of advertising they offer without paying the same costs towards advertising.
I agree, I need to take the time to do that, I always mention folksy by name but the visual would be so much better and that way the branding starts to become recognisable