I am not a team player...

Another way Etsy suggests to promote a shop is to join teams. After you join, you participate in the games and discussions they have to help promote yourself. So of course, I decided  to join a few right off the bat, because I really want to get our brand out there. (Branding is another biggie that I am not sure about, but it sounds good occasionally thrown into a random sentence here and there) The first thing I discovered about teams is that they are very time consuming. And many of them demand that you participate on a daily basis. Since I am still trying to build my inventory, AND work roughly 60-70 hours a week at my full-time job, this was starting to present a major problem for me. My first attempt with teams was an unqualified bust. I just didn't have the time to participate, as many of the games are very complex. After I got over 20 items listed in my shop, I decided to give it another try. After all, thousands of Etsy sellers recommend this, so I figured by the law of averages, it had to be beneficial. So I joined a team for helping with SEO and promotion. One of the games was to get 100 favorites for your item. Sounded like a great deal to me. I had to post an item, go favorite all the items listed before mine (over 200 pages worth) and wait for the magic. I took my latest masterpiece...

https://www.etsy.com/listing/183398003/recycled-multi-use-candle-holders?ref=shop_home_active_1

 

Listed it, click my way through all those other pages and gleefully watched as my favorites added up.

 

Now generally I am not dumb, but I fell for this hook, line, and sinker. The game did as promised. I currently have 91 favorites on this item. Yea me! But it still wasn't coming up in searches. I was stumped. It's totally unique, for sure. In hundreds of pages I never found another candle holder that would hold all types of candles. So WHY couldn't I find this in a search??? Page views. The people that run Etsy are not suckers, like me. They know things. Like my 91 favorites HAD to come from a team game, because I only have 39 page views of the item. Now if I had 100 page views, and 91 favorites, that would be a different story altogether.

 

When you list your item in a team forum, it places the item page in a convenient little box right there on the forum. It comes complete with a little heart icon for you to click on. You. Never. Have. To. Leave. The. Forum. So I shot myself in the foot big time on this one. I have a bunch of useless favorites now, with no way of knowing how many of the 39 people that actually went to my shop and looked at it really liked the damn thing. I think until I am MUCH better established, team time is in a time out for me.

 

But hey, if you like it, go buy it! It's still for sale, and I'll throw in the 91 useless favorites completely free of charge!