What if we didn’t think of it as ‘tutorials’, but more like short clips of ‘watching the magic happen’?. Who doesn’t love seeing a pot being thrown on a wheel? or maybe a piece of marbled paper being pulled off the plate? or a fabric growing on the loom? None of that would give any secrets away, but shares the magic moment.
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Camilla I do understand. I think we all do. What we don’t understand is that you do very little social media promotion to help us sell our products because you are ‘such a small team’ but you have time to concentrate your efforts of things which are not going to help buyers find our products. x
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Camilla, as Joy said we do understand but feel with the increase of 50% in fees time spent advertising the site in non crafting magazines etc would be a better use of resources. Remaining a selling site not one site fits all. If we want to do videos these are done on Instagram or FB. It just feels atm with 1 featured seller per month and now this too many ideas that are not a fit for all. We need more advertising, craft mags are useless as people that buy them, along with visiting Hobbycraft are not always the sort to buy handmade but get ideas to make themselves.
You have a very loyal database of sellers but seem hell bent on getting rid of them gradually. We feel unlistened too and things are brought in at random etc. Change is not always for the better and the basics need to be got right first.
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Maybe similar to my earlier suggestion - what about having style posts. For example, make an outfit with a bag from one maker, scarf from another, gloves from another, or a party outfit with a clutch purse, jewellery, hair accessory, shawl all from different makers. Room styles, furniture, wall art, rugs, shelving again from different makers. Make them collections of things that would work together or that fit a theme. Show people how products on folksy can be used and styled into their lives.
Do some tutorials on how to create a collection of wall art for example that would fit into a room with a beautiful piece of furniture from a folksy maker. How to style wearable accessories and put colours and textures together. That is probably instinctive to most of us but I know a lot of people who aren’t creative and really struggle with that kind of thing.
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Great idea, Bekki!
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I would like to see the capacity for us to be able to add a short video in our listings pages It’s a fact that video helps sell products and I always check out a sellers products if they have a video as it can add a whole new dimension to it and can be the deciding factor for me as a buyer. To me this would be a more focused and professional way to see the Folksy fee increases spent.
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Oh agreed.
Seconded please. Way more useful.
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Why?
Isn’t Folksy ‘niche’ enough already?
After all nobody seems to have heard of this site outside of the people who sell on it!
Shouldn’t Folksy be focusing on changing that, so everybody in the UK has heard of Folksy?
So that this is the site everybody visits when they need a card or gift?
Isn’t this a retail site?
Shouldn’t April be focusing on Weddings? Gardens? Spring?
Just as March should have been focused on Easter, yet somehow failed to do so?
Frustrated rant over…
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As has been pointed out, Folksy was set up to build a great place for people to showcase and sell their craft work. Those are two different things, showcasing someone’s work doesn’t just mean showing a finished item for sale. Looking deeper into a maker’s work than just the end product isn’t anything new for Folksy, and to get rid of that would be changing one of the main things that Folksy was built around, something which sets it apart from other sites and really helps highlight why the work for sale on Folksy is so special.
People like buying handmade because they want something meaningful or unique, they want something with a bit of a story behind it, whether it’s a piece that evokes great emotions, an admiration for the seller or unusual and interesting materials or techniques used to make it.
Highlighting more about sellers than just their items, how things are made, history and details about the craft that might not be immediately obvious - it all helps show the background that buyers want. It helps show how much work goes into items and how special they are - why they are so valuable and worth more than a cushion they could buy off Amazon or a card they could get at the supermarket.
It builds connections, it builds trust, it builds intrigue.
Just showing photos of lots of finished items might work for cheap mass produced stuff where people are familiar with the store/brand and their quality, but handmade items are often a much more considered purchase, and it can require a different sort of marketing than the in your face “buy this”.
And I’m not sure about anyone else, but seeing lots of product posts that are just “buy buy buy” doesn’t make me want to follow social media accounts.
The work Folksy does on the blog and social media isn’t a distraction from marketing (and it’s not a change from what’s already been done), it’s just a softer and subtler approach. You might think a 15 second video couldn’t provide anyone with any value, but it’s that sort of content that gets people looking online these days. That’s what makes people notice, and then they might follow the account, and then they might see other posts that are promoting items for sale, and then they go to Folksy and see all of the lovely items from all of the wonderful sellers…
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I agree this would be a far better use of videos. My journals are a case in point can only add 10 images and a video like E…y would be brilliant.
This would help all sellers if they want to use it.
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Okay in other words you have already made up your minds. One featured seller a month, tutorials when a video on the listing would be good for sales.
I have decided to let my shop run as paid for the year but not sure will renew. There are several other British sites now coming up and doing well, working for all the sellers not just mad cap ideas to upset the sellers they need to keep.
Oh but of course you do not need us, so the ones that have left recently are worth nothing as you would rather have mass produced wheelie bin labels and more on the new sellers. They will probably sell more than us and no handmade about it, sit at a computer enter the image and size of the design and laser cut on giant machines. I reported this seller but still there. Expect they will be in the best sellers in a few weeks.
I am also no longer commenting on these threads as a waste of my time, you never listen to us so why announce what you have planned, just go ahead and do what you want, change what you want as feel you do not really want our opinions. You have no interest in your sellers at all.
I do wonder that only people who are into craft themselves are interested in the story or how it is made . I will sometimes look but not always. Buyers want to find items fast, if not they go elsewhere. Everyone leads busy lives if they are only wanting to buy something they will be more likely to buy if search shows up exactly what they want.
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Well said. Get the basics right first.
This is why our listings pages have a section where we can share why we made a particular item and what inspired us to make it. I do think a short reel showing part of the process might be a good idea, but perhaps not a full tutorial. What Folksy really needs is more publicity. It’s sadly lacking in that department. Why is the posting on their social media so sparse? Why aren’t they at the forefront of an advertising campaign? Why are they relying so much on sellers promoting the place? When you step outside Folksy and see how other selling sites like this are run, it’s very disappointing.
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When you say posting our social media is sparse could you clarify what you’d expect to see @VioletFlameGlassArt and how often? We do post almost every day and put a lot of thought into what content we post.
It might be useful to know, both in the context of the discussion of this thread and in terms of your own social media channels (this applies to all Folksy sellers), that the posts that get the biggest reach are usually always reels that show part of the process, which is why we wanted to try to get more content like this to share. As we don’t make the pieces, we rely on sellers creating and sending us these.
For example, in the last six months this reel (again by Jess from The Whimsical Marbler) which we shared on Instagram reached 40,000 people, whereas posts that use product shots usually reach between 1,500-3,000 people.
What we are trying to is create content that has the best engagement and reach, so that as many people as possible discover Folksy and then come to the site and buy. The decisions we make on how to best do that are based on experience and our data, but we also want to feature as many sellers as possible so we try to mix up the content in order not to exclude sellers who can’t or don’t want to create video content.
@Caroleecrafts I’m genuinely sorry you feel we don’t listen and aren’t interested in our sellers. We read the forums and all comments on social media every day, and use your feedback to inform our decisions. We want to create a site that works for everyone which means understanding what our sellers need, while also considering how our customers find us and how they shop, so therefore our sellers opinions are crucial. There will be times, though, when we have data - particularly around customer interactions, actions and engagement on our social media, blog and site - that leads us to take particular decisions which we believe will help increase reach, conversions and sales for everyone on the site, even if some sellers aren’t happy with those decisions. We do always want the best for our sellers and want to make Folksy as successful as it can be for everyone. That’s our primary aim.
Video on listings would be great. It is on our wishlist but we’re focused on SEO at the moment as we believe this will have a bigger impact.
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It’s ‘yes please’ to a 15 sec vid on listings from me too! It’s been requested before! 
https://talk.folksy.com/t/videos-please/22913
I’m OK with Folksy doing the reels thing on socials - members who wish to get involved can do so, and those who aren’t keen don’t have to take part 
However I feel it is more important to get the video option up and running on listings first!
I always wanted my work to be exclusive to Folksy but sadly last year I gave in and opened an Etsy shop purely for the video function 
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About two weeks ago I checked out your twitter and you hadn’t posted for a week. Other sites are posting several times a day on Twitter constantly. I was wondering why you don’t?
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The Folksy Local North West Instagram hasn’t had anything new since 20th January and the FB nothing since 11th November 
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I think the reels is a great idea as this is what more and more people like to engage in. I also don’t have any problem with sellers showing part of how they make things - I’m quite happy to do a reel showing the steps of certain pieces I make. But I stand by the feeling I get that Folksy is not reaching it’s full potential regarding advertising and promotion. Inevitably, Folksy is going to be compared to other sites that work a lot harder than you to get their names out there. After all these years, why doesn’t everyone know about Folksy?
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I’m hanging onto Folksy by the skin of my teeth. I’ve stopped the Folksy Plus for now. I keep hoping and hoping it will suddenly get an injection of promotion that will elevate it to the masses. When the fees went up, I thought they might do that. I get these things take time, but I’ve been on Folksy since it opened (in other guises with different shops), and it still just ambles along, shuffling behind everyone else when it comes to promotion.
I can’t fault the shop front, and the support we get. It has a little niche in my creative heart that I can’t quite winkle out. Are we asking for perfection? Well, why not?
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