Getting Featured

I'm by no means an expert on having items chosen to be featured on Folksy. Nor am I privy to the rhymes and reasons behind the all powerful admin choice. However, having been a featured seller and having had seven items chosen to be featured to date I'd say I've been pretty luck in this regard. But does it all come down to luck?


There was a time when I would have said that being chosen is mostly down to pure luck, but having spend a bit of time thinking about it and also dabbling with the theories I'd now have to say that whilst yes, quite a lot of it is down to plain old fashioned luck there's nothing to say that you can't make a fair amount of your very own luck! I'll start by saying that the following are merely little tips. Things that I've found to work simply from my own point of view. That's not to say that everyone, or anyone for that matter will experience any level of success but the way I see it, if you haven't been featured and would love to be, sure where's the harm in trying.




The first thing is obvious and it has been repeated again and again. Good photos and descriptions help a great deal. Now when I say good photos try to keep in mind that all of my featured items were chosen based on the very photos you see here. Yes, they're clear, they all give clear representations of colour and shape and show some of the detail, but let's face it, none of my photos are knicker wettingly beautiful are they!

So the most important thing is that the photos are clear, the easiest way to do this is to take photos in natural light, but not direct sunlight, I'm not a fan of lightbox shots, mostly because I think a lit of people confuse a photo taken in a lightbox with the perfect photo. Thye often aren't and still need some level of post processing which is often overlooked because too many people think that the lightbox is king.

If your camera has a macro setting, use it! If it doesn't, take the photo from just enough distance that your camera can properly focus on the item and then use photo editing software to crop in on the detail you want to show off. Simple.

They claim that a photo is worth a thousand words. But the photo above doesn't tell you whether that scarf is six feet long or six inches, which makes it pretty much useless as a full method of description. Photos aren't an excuse for slacking on a description. Say admin search for "spring brooch" and your brooch and mine come up. Say I've clearly stated that mine is 7cm x 7cm and you haven't bothered, or worse still you've set a pound coin beside the brooch, who do you think will be picked?

The point is, don't give anyone, whether it be admin or a customer the opportunity to skip on past you because you haven't answered all their questions in your listing.



Just based on what I've noticed in the last few months, asking outright or complaining about not being chosen doesn't seem to help. You'll only receive the standard "loads of lovely things", "hard to chose", "wait your turn" responses. Instead spend your time constructively, tweaking the little details or retake a photo for the hell of it.




This is just an observation on my part, but considering that Folksy are very clear on the subject of using your profile to link out to your other shops in the terms of use, I can't imagine that going ahead and doing this anyway will put you firmly on the "oh we must send loads of our traffic to that shop" list. Just a thought, do with it what you will. Try and think like admin. I've paid attention and was getting pretty good at guessing what the upcoming themes would be. Of course I'm as screwed as everyone else now that we have a new admin who isn't Anne, but I'll be paying attention again and trying to get inside their head too:)

Again here the point is that once you can pretty much figure out what the themes might be, then you can tag, or even rename entirely, accordingly. I'm not saying that you should keyword spam, don't be that guy, nobody likes that guy and that guy will probably end up being reported. However try and think about upcoming times in the calender and not just holidays but other times of the year that everyone pretty much agrees are well known for something or other.

For instance, the April Showers feature was so obviously on the way (I very nearly used it for my Folksy Friday the previous week) that we may as well have had advance notice. Now I looked at my shop, as I often do and I tried looking at it from all different angles. Nothing was going to fit an April Showers theme, but I checked anyway and had a quick search for some keywords and very little was coming up, but I knew it was too obvious a feature to be passed by and so I changed the description of my Sun Blush Cobweb Scarf to state that it is perfect for Spring weather, see what I did there.

I took a shot, simple as that and because there weren't many items coming up under related searches, bingo bango I'm sitting pretty with another featured item under my belt.



If one of your items isn't chosen, but you think that it should have been or at the very least it fit the theme, then make the most of it. Draw attention to the featured items wherever you chose to promote yourself and follow up with something of your own. You can even go against the grain entirely.

Say for talk sake there happens to be an iphone cozy in the featured items and you have a blackberry cozy (because we all know more people would be on time and remember birthdays if they'd just bought a grown up phone in the first place) then point that out too because if someone is shopping to make sure the kiddie winks' iphones are all snuggly and warm, why not treat themselves at the same time:)

Lastly, and this isn't a piece of advice on how to get featured, so much as what to do if you don't get featured. Don't sweat it. While I do spend some time working on becoming featured rather than just leaving it up to chance, that's not to say that being featured has a great deal of effect. Even thought I have often had sales while I have an item up there in the bright lights, I've yet to sell a featured item while it's being featured. It's always something completely different. And not everything that I've had featured has sold either. For instance that little Autumn Brooch is pinned to my handbag.

So to sum up, there are things that you can which may increase your chances of being featured, but even if you aren't there are even more ways to make the small selection of featured products still work for you too.

Above all, don't get down about, don't get obsessed about it and have fun.