Hi, I have created this topic as I have a handful of ideas to share regarding social media and search engine optimisation (SEO). I know that there are similar threads and this topic isn’t about one social media platform in particular, just a general view. I am no expert - it’s literally just a few things that I do to help save time.
PLEASE DO SHARE YOUR TIPS: I am learning stuff every day and would love for you all to add your tips, ideas and advice. Also I am new to starting a topic so please bear with me! I am assuming that I just add ideas as comments.
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When posting on social media platforms, I generally get stumped with the content. What shall I post about? Is it engaging? Will people love/hate it? I find that it becomes stressful when I have to do this every day; it is a chore that I often procrastinate about. So I have created a daily ‘crib sheet’ template for myself, just to give me an organised approach of what to post about each day. I don’t always stick to one social media platform as I belong to various interest groups. I have created this in Excel, and will happily email it to you should you wish to amend it for your own purposes.
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TAGS AND HASHTAGS
This is all super nerdy but preparation is key for me!
I keep a Word document containing all of my tags and hashtags that I use in my listings, social media posts, embedded tags (in photos - more on that next). Obviously, I don’t use all of them all of the time, but they are there to give me ideas when I can’t immediately think of 15 tags to use in my Folksy listings and then when I come to promote the product(s) on social media. I have no idea what a potential customer will be typing in to Folksy in order to find a product to buy, so this is an aide memoir for me. Also, when copying similar listings (which means each listing will have the same tag initially), you can switch things up by using differently worded tags.
This is a fluid document that I keep adding to when inspired. The first image is part of my contents page, so I just click on the item and it jumps me to that section containing ideas for tags to use.
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NAMING PHOTOGRAPHS before uploading to listings and social media sites.
This is a search engine optimisation (SEO) tip for not only renaming your photographs but embedding tags into them, to make them more visible when you upload them online. NOTE: I only know how to do this in Windows, not on a Mac.
Briefly, when you take a digital photo (on your phone or camera) the device assigns a name to that photo, something along the lines of DSC0001 or 20241606_1508 (date and time). When people are searching online for, say, vintage letter writing paper, those assigned photo names are meaningless to Google. Therefore, it is important to rename your photos to be as descriptive as possible (and possibly include your store name) so that your photo has a better chance of getting a higher ranking in Google. Not only that, like your Folksy listings where you can assign tags, you can ‘embed’ tags into your photos to further increase visibility.
It sounds time consuming, but you can rename photos (any format) in a big lump (so not one at a time), and you can add tags [EDIT: jpg or jpeg only for adding tags, does not work for png files] in blocks. Here’s where my TAGS AND HASHTAGS document becomes useful (so you can copy and paste the info). Here’s how I do this in Windows:
- Find the photos where you have stored them in your computer and select the ones you need to rename.
- Press the F2 key and start typing in the new photo name. All of the photos will have the same name but will have a unique number at the end, for example “letter writing paper 1”, “letter writing paper 2” and so on.
- To ‘tag’ your photos (and I think the number of tags is practically unlimited), [see pics] select all of the photos for which to assign tags, right click and choose “Properties” from the pop up menu. Then click on the “Details” tab. Click (or double click) in the blank space next to Tags and either start adding your tags (not character limited) separated by a semi colon, or copy and paste from your TAGS AND HASHTAGS document if you have started to build one of these.
This will all help to increase your visibility on search engines (and social media sites).
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Amazing! I’m definitely going to try this, thanks.
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Tried this already and I have some interesting finds to report.
Some of my photos are saved as JPG and some as PNG so I ended up with duplicate names, one assigned to a JPG and one to a PNG. That’s not a problem for me but I thought worth noting.
Also, I do not have the option to add tags to the PNG files so I will be careful to save images as JPG in the future where there is a choice.
It was easy to change my PNGs to JPGs by choosing save as and changing the file type. I could then add tags as per your instructions.
Really pleased with how quick and easy this is to do, I feel like I have achieved something today! 
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That’s a brilliant tip about renaming your photos - I had no idea that could make a difference! Maybe it’s worth going back into my listings and re-uploading them. (I’m impressed with how organised you have everything btw!)
I’ll be watching this thread with interest. It’s actually been driving me crazy, the indecision whether to go back onto social media or not. I really hate using it - I know I have a tendency to become addicted, and to be dragged down comparing myself to other people - but I am trying to make this into a viable business and I don’t want to go slamming doors in my own face right out of the gate. So yes, watching, learning…
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Thank you for sharing your tips, I had no idea about the photo naming 
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That’s really good to know - thanks for reporting back on that. I had no idea about tags and png files. I haven’t tried to see if it’s possible to tag videos yet.
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I know how that feels. Sometimes I am scared to post things - but I don’t know why, so I need to shake off those feelings and just do it!
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Thanks for all the tips Ali @Craftyali1 - I’m going to keep watching this post with interest
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HASHTAGS / TAGS
If you are stuck for hashtag (or tag) ideas and you have an Instagam account, you can get suggestions for tags. I am going to use @TheHermitsBothy beautiful “Highland sea glass and sterling silver 925 stacked necklace” as an example.
So, in Instagram click on the magnifying glass symbol to bring up the search field, and type in #seaglass. You will see all of the hashtags relating to sea glass that people have used - lots of which you might not have thought of yourself. Obviously there will be competition, but no one has any copyright to a hashtag, so you can use these in your own posts. They are established hashtags and people might be following these, so why not use them in your posts - they might help to attract completely new people to your post (and in turn to your Folksy page). You can also use them as tags in your listings (but spell them properly, please!).
And don’t forget to add them to your TAGS AND HASHTAGS document [that you may or may not create, lol].
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Some great tips here, Ali. I’ve already changed the names on some of my photos and added some tags.
It’s a good idea to start a tags and hashtags document - will have to get onto that too.
Thanks for all the tips!
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This is a fab tip. Never thought of doing that.
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Haha, you’ve got me checking to see if I’ve spelled them properly now 
See, I have no idea what I’m doing with tags. I wasn’t sure whether it’s better to do ‘sea glass’ and ‘necklace’, or ‘sea glass necklace’… or all of the above! I started doing both with some of my earrings. Is it worth doing a separate ‘sea glass necklace’ if you’ve already done ‘sea glass’ and ‘necklace’? Or is that a waste of a tag?
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Regarding tags, all of the advice I have read up on says to include multi-word tags. However, when I was looking at the top keywords people from the UK have used (on the ‘other side’) in the past week, they were as follows:
wall art
earrings
new dad gift
slime
bracelet
so it kind of throws that advice out of the window! Sorry to not have a definitive answer for this.
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LISTING AUDIT
This is something I am becoming more and more mindful of when listing new items. What can the potential buyer see?
Only the first 27 characters (includes spaces) of the title are visible in Folksy listings when a general search is done, unless the buyer clicks on the item to read further into it. In Google, the first 60 characters are visible. Therefore, it’s best to put your most important keywords near the start of the title to help buyers see them when they are searching in Folksy. In my photo example below, I think the important key words are “die cuts” - and I can see that I will need to amend my title so that you can see those key words. I will change the title to “Afternoon Tea Die Cuts”.
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LISTING AUDIT 2
Is there a clear connection / relation between the title of your listing, what you are describing and the keywords? I was thinking about this the other day when reviewing one of my listings for notebooks. Whilst I had used “notebook” in my title, I didn’t use it in my description - I had called it a “planner refill” and then in my tags I had used “TN insert” [TN is an abbreviation for Traveller’s Notebook]. It was like I was listing 3 different products in one go!
Furthermore, I thought to check my stats and see what phrases and keywords buyers are typing in to land on my products, and I thought to incorporate those search terms as keywords for some of my listings
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Re listings being seen - did you see the event about ‘how to write a listing that gets seen in search results’? From memory I think she said that the Folksy search engine looks at the title first then the description, then the tags, and she said it’s good to have the same key words in all three places if you want to be high up in search results. Of course, it depends on exactly what words people use for searching, so it’s good to use a variety of words to describe the item and repeat them if possible. I’ve tried to think of this when doing new listings but haven’t gone through and changed all my listings as yet.
Also re the title and how only the first part shows - that’s another thing I’ve been thinking about too and have changed some of my titles so they describe the item better in the first few words.
There was another of the Folksy Plus events where the woman said that it helps to put the category in the title as well. For example if you’re listing a necklace, you could put the word ‘jewellery’ at the end of the title, or for my hanging decorations, I now put ‘home decor’ at the end (whether it helps or not I don’t know!). That might be for a google search.
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This is so useful Ali @Craftyali1 - you’ve mentioned things I’ve never even thought about.
I’m going to start with one of the easiest things and take a fresh look at my titles.
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