Tips for Promoting your Etsy Shop

The Basics of Promoting

When promoting your shop online you want to get as many people to see it as possible. I break promotion down into 3 types: Display, Advertising, and Social. Many times these can blend into each other for example Squidoo is often a combination of all three.

Which areas you focus on the most depend on your business, the amount of time you have to spend promoting, and your advertising budget but you should work all three into your promotion plan.

Display

This is showing your work off and informing people about it. This is what a blog, other website, or a gallery like Flickr or DeviantArt does. You show off your work, tell a little about it and yourself, maybe post information about deals but it\'s mostly ameans of displayign your work to get people to then visit your shop.
Advertising

This is straightforward placing ads. It could be Google adwords or Project Wonderful placing ads on websites for you, buying an adspace directly on a website, or posting on a free ad site.
Social

This is building a network of people who are interested in you and your products. Site like Twitter, Facebook, and Ning Networks are geared specifically for building networks.
Places to Promote - Short Sample List

* Own The Hour: Independent Etsy Promotion, Fresh Every Hour!
* Indiepublic - Independent art and design community
* Twitter: What are you doing?
* Blogger: Create your free blog
* WordPress.com » Get a Free Blog Here
* Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing
* Project Wonderful - Bid based online advertising broker
* Facebook