Today we have a new installment of The Etsy Way, a special guest column by Shannon Riffe offering advice to navigate the vast waters of selling on Etsy- read on!
Thanks Biz Tip readers for your overwhelmingly positive reaction to my first column! I’ve copied and pasted all of your suggestions from the comment section into a Word document and I’m working on columns that will address each and every one of your concerns in the future.
{photo by bookgrl. If you can't say something nice... zip the lip.}
Ah, comments! A wonderful way to interact with people online you would never “meet” otherwise. As Jena and I both know, a robust and helpful comments section is a key element of establishing a thriving blog. But what happens when comments turn nasty? What about when comments turn nasty and they are directly linked to your business? Think no one would be dumb enough to bad mouth someone else or make offensive statements online, under the real name of their own business? Think again, and then take a look at the Etsy Forums.
The Etsy Forums are an amazing user-generated repository of information regarding all things Etsy. Need to know the best techniques for great photographs or want to get the inside scoop on whether advertising on Facebook is worth it? A quick search of the Forums will turn up answers to these questions and much more. But interspersed among the useful nuggets of information you’ll also discover a darker side of the Etsy experience.
Too often the Forums can get nasty and competitive. Even a seemingly harmless thread can get quickly derailed by one off-color comment. Among some of the surprising things I’ve seen on the Forums are sellers complaining about other shops, statements of potentially offensive political or social opinions, and lots of snide comments regarding perceived favoritism by the Etsy admin towards certain shops.
I’m not here to tell you what you can or can’t comment on in the Etsy Forums, I just want to emphasize the fact that these forums are open to the public – buyers, sellers– and that every statement you make there is directly linked to your Etsy shop. When commenting, don’t forget that you are representing yourself as a business owner. Etsy prides itself on their community input, and lots of suggestions and calls for improvements that have originated from the Forums have been incorporated into the official site. These forums are a vibrant and vigorous part of the Etsy community but the things you say can come back to haunt you.
Being online can lull you into a false sense of security, but you never know who (potential customer, potential press) is watching. The next time you feel the urge to post something in the forums that’s potentially controversial, take a second to ask yourself whether you would be embarrassed if one of your customers read it and allow that to guide your decision.
As always, your comments on this article or on other topics you’d like to see in future columns are always welcome!
Shannon Riffe has written Make It, a blog about
building a craft business, since 2006. She is currently based in Ann
Arbor, MI and makes handmade soap with screenprinted paper wrappers for
her business, Rifferaff.
