This link was submitted by mediterra, lots of good tips for our shops...

http://www.etsy.com/storque/seller-handbook/best-of-the-etsy-forums-20-questions-your-buyers-are-asking-7024/

  TREASURIES – if you built it they will come…well, maybe not

I know I have been talking about the importance of tags in your listings and I want to encourage you to move forward on including the team tag in your listings.  I will come back to this important topic however it seems as a team we have turned into a dynamic treasury creation machine.  Treasuries are a great way to get your shop and the team “out there” and be noticed. Just because you  build a great treasury doesn’t mean people will look at it …there are some things you can do to help it along.   Time to touch on some highlights for success.

I want to touch briefly on a couple of things and this list is by no means the complete authority on the topic.  I want to touch on the following:

* Finding the Right Inspiration

* Creating the Treasury

* Tagging: Team and Non-Team treasuries

* Treasury Etiquette

  

FINDING THE RIGHT INSPIRATION

I know a lot of people are driven to create a treasury that will end up on the front page. While that would be lovely I believe you want to build one for the sheer pleasure of it and to promote the shops you feature.  Look to things in your day, or what is popular or hot right now, holidays, colours, something that catches your eye or tickles your funny bone.  I did a whole egg treasury one day after a funny event in the hen house.  The inspiration is often the least challenging part of creating a treasury. 

I have found that without fail, anytime I do a treasury, it drives business to my own shop. Guess people get curious about me as the curator and check it out too. 

CREATING THE TREASURY

*Finding the right items is key to building a successful treasury.  They should be in keeping with your theme. Look for items with the best pictures from shops that have a good reputation (100% positive feedback) or perhaps brand new shops just starting out.  Make sure the items are relevant to your theme. 

*Search Etsy for the right items and mark down the item number (and maybe even a short description of the item).  You need 16 pics in total but I always have 1 or 2 extras in case something is sold by the time I’m ready or I just don’t like the way something looks. 

*Your description of the treasury is more meaningful if you include a bit about why you choose that theme, a quote or something that lays the framework for the treasury.  Don’t make people guess.  And, if it is a team treasury add (Forget me Nots Daily Discovery Team FMNDDTeam)

*Pick the best three pictures to go in those first three slots…they are the ones that show up and need to catch the eye of potential treasury seekers. 

*Load your items in, move them around until you are happy with how it looks and add your tags (see the next section for team tag info)

*Once you hit save…it is live so make sure you are happy with it before unleashing it on the universe.  Don’t panic, there is an edit button.

TAGGING – TEAM AND NON-TEAM TREASURIES

These are to be considered guidelines we would ask you to respect…not so much rules, as we aren’t a big rule based team.

*To be considered a FMNDDTeam treasury, it should include a minimum of 8 shops from our team.  (no multiples from a shop) and do not include items from your own shop.  You can certainly include more, but 8 is the minimum.  This allows you to fill the balance of the treasury with items that match your theme from around Etsy. This will help broaden our exposure and reach…the more people who see our great stuff…the better it is for our shops and all of us.  If you develop a “team treasury” make sure to use the FMNDDTEAM in the tag section of the treasury

*Another tag to include is etsyteamtreasury.  This one helps when Etsy goes looking for teams to promote…they may just find us. 

*You don’t have to build only team treasuries.  Curate what your heart leads you to. Promote it to the team, however we would ask you not to include the FMNDDTEAM in the treasury tag.  When you post it to the Treasury section on our site, simply put whether it is a team or non-team treasury.  We love to see and support them all.

TREASURY ETIQUETTE

Okay so now you have built it and turned it live…what do you do? It takes a bit of time but it is courtesy, I think, to let each featured shop know you have included them. Click each listing and send them a convo with the link to the treasury. 

TREASURY OTHER STUFF

Here are some additional random thoughts. 

*When I have an item that shows up in a treasury, I edit the title to include (at the end) TREASURY ITEM. Then in the description …This item is currently featured in the following treasury…and I provide a link to the treasury.  This way if someone finds my item by accident they may click the link and discover the treasury

* Follow Etsy’s Terms of Use at all times

* Promote the treasury on Facebook, or Twitter or whatever other venues you can. 

So…those are some quick hits.  The members of the team can certainly offer up some more ideas on what works well for them…and what does not.  So, let’s get out there and create some more fabulous treasuries.  They are fun...give it a try.

As always, if you have questions, drop me a convo and I’ll see if I can help, or put it out there to the team …you are bound to find some idea.  Hope this was helpful. 

  HELPFUL HINT – FEB 4TH - TAG TAG TAG – Part One
So as I started to work on the whole issue of tagging I realized just how important it was and realized I can’t do it in just one post. So this is Post One of several (probably 3 over the next few days). I’m going to start with the topic of our Team Tag

TEAM TAG – Action required

Okay so over the next while we will be sorting out a few things with our new fabulous team. Short form of our name is FMNDD (Forget-me-nots Daily Discoveries). Our team tag will be FMNDDTeam. So you are probably saying to yourself…how nice…why do I need to know that. Well here’s why and what we need you to do.

Being a member of a team creates a special bond. We need to be able to find each others’ listings efficiently without too much hunting. Say I want to create a treasury of blue items using our team items. If you have tagged your items with the team tag, I can quickly locate them by searching “Blue FMNDDTeam.” This saves me looking at each store one by one searching for blue. As our team grows in size, as it is doing day over day, this will become an increasingly important tag to add.

Here’s what you need to do:
Over the next while we need you to insert the team tag in your listings so that at least 25% of your listings are tagged FMNDDTeam. More would be great but at least 25% gives us a good sampling and may become a team requirement. While you are there editing your listing to insert this tag, review the other tags you are using….are you happy with them … if not, now is the time to change them. There will be more suggestions on tagging down the road over the weekend.

If your store is like mine and you have lots of listings trying to do them one by one can be a challenge. Contact me and I can send you a link to a site that will allow you to do bulk changes.

Stay tuned for more helpful hints each day. Tags; info on building a Team Treasury, the power of renewing listings; getting that title just right; And, I’m open to suggestions…have a topic in mind, send me a convo.