You have probably noticed a new link (now a button) on the far left when you log in to Etsy's homepage. I'm not really sure what its proper name is, but it reminds me of several things... a whirlpool, a tornado, hypnotism glasses, that weird circular thing that James Bond likes to walk through... Whatever you call it, this button leads you to your activity feed.
This is something totally new for Etsy in the past few months, and I personally LOVE it. Every time someone adds an item in your shop to their favorites, or shares your item in a treasury, or makes a purchase, that activity shows up in your activity feed. It helps me see which items are "hot" with potential buyers. It's free market research that automatically pops up without me having to do anything!
In addition to activity related directly to your own shop, your activity feed also shows the activity of people that you've added to your "circle". The benefits of using circles are harder for me to understand. I think the idea is that circles allow sellers to help promote each other because any item I "favorite" will show up on the activity feed of anyone in my circle.
Here are some helpful posts from the Etsy forum about circles:
The Unofficial Etsy Forums also had some interesting discussions about Circles:
Circles and Friendship (The thread isn't as negative as the title makes it sound.)
I'm still debating about whether or not I like the circles feature, but it definitely has potential.
How have you been using Circles and the Activity Feed?
I agree with you about the Activity Feed...I love it! And I am also not sure about Circles. I haven't done much with it and I am not quite sure how it helps...me or somebody else. But I keep my favorites private. I am hesitant about adding too many people to my circle because I don't want my activity feed inundated with other people's favorites. Not that I am not interested in those people, it's just a lot of information sometimes that I feel is unnecessary...I like what they create, not what they may be interested in buying! Anyway, I think I need to learn more about Circles before I am ready to embrace to the whole concept. So thank you for the links to the forum posts!
ReplyDeleteThank you for all that good information. I use the circle to add people in the etsy team so I can see what treasuries people are making and what they might be posting new in their shop. That is about the extent of my use.
ReplyDeleteGood info! I actually usually turn off the circle portion of my activity feed, because most of the time I don't really need to know what everyone else is doing. (I can barely keep up with myself!) But I find it helpful to see what's going on in my own shop as far as hearts and treasuries.
ReplyDelete