Introduction
People Who Heart my Shop
Hearts in Etsycan be a bit confusing. When someone hearts your shop or an item it means they have added it to their favorite list. There are two different types of viewing hearts. If you see who hearts a shop it appears in a circle format with a picture of the people’s avatars with the most recent avatar photos near the center. You can use the arrows at the bottom to see the older hearts. Some people choose to make their heats private and on this list they will appear as a question mark. As a seller do not make your favorites private. That is a privilege reserved for buyers.
When viewing the favorites (things they hearted) selected by a person these items are organized into two lists. The first list is for items. A photo of the item is listed with information additional information including the price and the shop. The second list is of the shops that they have hearted. Again basic information is given such as the number items in the shops and pictures of some sample pieces are shown.
Many people argue that hearts mean nothing other then a self-esteem boost. Some less cynical people argue that all hearting represents is the etsy version of bookmarking. I would argue this is not true. First hearts create a community affect. Second it creates more comprehensive internal linking, which is good for search engine optimization (SEO). Third if hearts are used properly they can lead to good leads and possible sales.
Community Affect
Shops that I have Hearted on My Favorite List
As mentioned before etsy is part social network like Facebook. Being part of the etsy social network or community is helpful to selling better on etsy. Have your shop hearted means that people are welcoming you into their community of favorite shops or items. On the other hand you need to heart other shops that you like in order to create your own etsy community. Once again as a buyer make sure possible customers can see what items you have hearted.
It is easy to find stuff to heart. I heart anything I intend to purchase. I heart shops that I think are doing cool things or have neat products. I also heart shops that I might want to check out later. I even heart shops where I think the seller is cool and I want to stay in contact with them.
Lastly hearts are gauge that shows how much the community likes an item. This is a good way to tell if you should make more items similar to the ones that have been heavily hearted. The number of hearts is a good way evaluate a piece for this purpose. Some people argue that if a piece has a lot of heart but does not sell there is something wrong.
I do not agree with this argument. If the piece has a lot of hearts but does not sell this might not be a bad thing. People may come to your shop to look at this piece but will purchase something else. When I sell at art fairs I have several pieces that get people to come to my table but they buy something else. These heavily hearted pieces are the same thing in the online selling world.
Internal Links
Hearts create internal links to your shop and items. Internal links help your shop with search engine results. Search engines crawl websites as deeply as they can, and as they crawl they track the different internal links within a site. When a search engine crawler detects a lot of internal links pointing to a page it will believe the page to be more trusted and popular. This will make the search engine rank the page with a lot of internal links higher compared to other pages with less internal links within the parent website.
For example if etsy shop A within etsy has 50 shop hearts and 130 items hearts. Then etsy shop B has 40 hearts and 90 items hearts. When shop A is compared to shop B by a search engine crawler, that search engine will rank shop A higher then shop B on the issue of internal links.
Sadly internal links are not as important as inbound links. Inbound links are considered very important for SEO and search engine crawlers. At the same time etsy gives sellers a great way to gain internal links easily. Gaining inbound links is difficult and time consuming.
Possible Leads
Items that I have Hearted that are on my Favorite List
For people that have done tell-a-marketing they will know the terms cold line and hot line. A cold line is when contacting a possible buyer randomly and hoping they might buy something. This is sometimes called cold calling, the key thing is when some is cold calling they are using a cold line.
When someone hearts your shop or an item that is a hot line. This person might be just browsing or they maybe researching a possible purchase. The big thing is this person more then just a casual visitor and they like your shop. Build a relationship with this person. Send them a quick convo over etsy thanking them for hearting your shop or the item. Then ask then to feel free to contact you if they have any questions.
I have sold two pieces this way from people hearting items and my shop since the month I have started doing this. I would even send a message to people who heart your shop that you met in the chat rooms or forums. It just builds a casual relationship with a person that is always helpful. The key part is keeping this convo as a “thank you” with a “please feel free to contact me” vibe.
At the same time do not make this convo feel like a used car salesmen. Etsy is a community and that kind of person is not welcomed in the etsy community. Also do not start cold convo people on etsy. If you spam people there will be negative consequences for your sales and for etsy’s reputation in general.
Conclusion
Hearts are not a magical gateway to massive amounts of sales. At the same time if hearts are nurtured in the right way it is possible to translate some of these hearts into sales. This might be more important for a seller like me that is selling items that are on average over $50. For me spending a few minutes contacting people that have hearted my shop or items has a good cost to benefit ratio. If your selling items for under $3 contacting every heart might not have a good cost to benefit ratio. In general hearts are good and remember anything good is good.
Posted by Silver Drops Designs Blog
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