Etsy Features: Activity Feeds and Circles

Etsy launched a new feature called circles three or four months ago. It took us forever to figure out how it worked for us, and there was a lot of handwringing in the forums about what it meant. Then, we decided to think about it like we think about twitter. And then it made a lot more sense.

So, you remember last week I talked about favorites and treasuries? Basically, every time you add a favorite or make a treasury, it's like tweeting. A notice will go out to all your followers (e.g. to everyone whose circle you're in) that you made a treasury or favorited something, with a link to your treasury or the item you favorited. Your activity feed is the collection of all those items and treasuries that people you follow (e.g. who you've added to your circle) have made or favorited. 

Getting started can be a challenge. The trick is to add people to your circle whose taste matches yours. But how do you find people who like what you like? I started by looking through the big all-treasuries list to find treasuries I liked. If there was someone who made a lot of treasuries, then I added them. We also try to stay active - adding items we find that we like and making lots, but not too many, treasuries.

Being in activity feeds really helps drive traffic to our shop - it's a great way for buyers to find our stuff, and it's a great way for us to find some really awesome things. Like this cute little turtle.