Really interesting analysis, and plenty to think about.
I knew I wouldnāt be on it either, Christine @coatimundi and I wasnāt ! Interesting to look at though and well done to all who did make it onto a list.
The social media aquisition is interesting. Pinterest seems to be dying a death, which personally Iām pleased about, because I really, really donāt like that site as a place for promotion. It should be called, āPlease Help Yourself To My Designs and Stick It On a āMust Make This Boardā, Just To Rub It Inā. Iāve never seen it as a selling tool, it was always marketed as a place to find inspiration, so no surprises it feels like somewhere where people just pinch your ideas. Really interesting that Twitter is static, but Facebook has gained massively in share. Itāll also be interesting to see how much Instagram has risen, if it has, next year because that feels like the major competition to Facebook now.
Jo
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I agree with Instagramā¦Instagram has just exploded in the last year and is such a visual site, I think itās great for promoting craft and discovering new.
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Hi Jo. Just to clarify, Pinterest became our biggest social referrer last year, overtaking Facebook for the first time. Facebook has actually reduced its share in terms of referrals to Folksy (ie the number of people it brings to the site) but is still by far the best social media channel in terms of conversion (ie Facebook leads to more sales than any of the other social channels).
Where Pinterest struggles is converting into sales, which is probably due to two reasons:
- most pins are āevergreenā meaning they donāt disappear and keep getting repinned long after they were originally listed, so lots of visitors from Pinterest are landing on sold-out items or empty shops
- about 60% of Pinterest users are in the US, but many shops on Folksy donāt ship to the US, so those visits canāt convert into sales.
I do totally understand your reservations about people using Pinterest for āinspirationā and copying designs, but the amount of traffic it brings to Folksy is HUGE (just under 540k visits from Pinterest in 2016 - up from 290k in 2015!). And these are all people actually clicking on the pins, not just repinning them. Itās a massive source of traffic and potential sales, itās just about how we (and you) can convert all those visits into sales.
We donāt have the stats to show comparisons for Instagram between 2015 and 2016, because our analytics only started tracking Instagram in October 2015, but it is definitely on the increase.
Visits from Twitter were actually down in 2016 but strangely sales from Twitter were up by 21%. So although not as many people came to Folksy from Twitter, more of these people bought something. Weāre not quite sure why that is, so we need to do some more digging here.
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Hi Camilla, funnily enough, the Folksy Chart made me go and look at my own Google Analytics, and for Folksy I get practically 50/50 Facebook and Pinterest visits and they make up the majority of my social media hits, so Pinterest isnāt dying for me and my Folksy shop, like I thought it might be. But, I do wonder if the clicking through to the shop is to get a better look at the design photos by the people wanting to make the item, and thatās why theyāre not converting to sales. My prices are the same here as over on Etsy and the US customers are happy to buy from there, so I donāt think the fact they might be international customers should stop them purchasing if they came from Pinterest. I need serious convincing that site is used by shoppers, and not just crafters looking for design ideas, which would explain the lack of conversion. I donāt see my items being pinned to many āMust Buy Thisā boards on that site, just tons of āDesign Ideasā, or āMust Make Thisā.
Facebook on the otherhand I totally get why what is massive for conversions, there is a real community of art lovers on that site that absolutely love getting something a bit different and are very knowledgeable about how long things take to make, and the skill taken in designing them, so are happy to pay for that. And they are very loyal to shops they like, so they follow them on Facebook for all the latest designs and use the links to Folksy that the shop posts to buy, so thatās a guaranteed sale every click.
As far as I can see, Instagram is getting a similar type of person looking at it as Facebook, because I know Iāve had sales through Instagram, and Iāve not been using it properly for that long (in fact Iāve not even got round to adding more than a pic here and a pic there, I really need to get a routine for posting pics regularly).
So, Iām happy to use Facebook and Instagram because I think Iām connecting with the people I want to connect with, Iām totally not happy with Pinterest, and your conversion information hasnāt changed that Iām afraid.
Ta for adding some meat to the bones though 
Jo
Weāve had some requests for the Top 20 best-selling shops, so hereās the list from number 11 to number 20 
@WritteninSilver @littleblackheart @JOYSofGLASS @nookandperch
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Thank s @folksycontent. Thatās brilliant and just about where I expected to find myself. xxx
PS: By coincidence thatās exactly where I am today
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thanks Camilla @folksycontent - I love a good stats roundup, and itās always interesting to see who is where and whatās what with the charts
very surprised but delighted to find myself sneaking into the top 20! xx
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Oh wow! Iām on a list ?
Thank you
Julie
Julie Love Little Works of Art
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Thanks for sharing .i still stuggling to pin from my shop but grateful for your topic of Pinterest