You've been treasuried

I spotted a question on treasuries today that got me thinking.

How do treasuries work? What are they for? How can they help me?

I enjoy making treasuries. I often make themed ones for our team so I'll try to explain this a bit!
As we know a treasury is basically a collection the curator chooses. So, how can treasuries help your shop? The simple answer is that it's free promotion. Whether or not customers search for goodies using treasuries is debatable but as we all know, many sellers are buyers too.

If a treasury is to gain popularity it will do so within hours of being created - the more clicks and admirers a treasury gets then the more popular it is. Or that is supposedly how it works. No one seems to know Etsy's exact formula there.

So it makes sense that the more popular a treasury becomes and the more likes it gets, the more it will be seen in peoples news feeds. The more circles a person is in, the more it'll be seen and thus the cycle continues. Treasury teams heavily promote their treasuries amongst each other, this is why their treasuries tend to be the ones trending or most popular - and often why theirs make the front page.

It's exposure - free promotion. And even if a treasury fails to gain popularity (as most do), you will likely gain a favourite or two from it and they DO count with search relevancy and your product will be seen in news feeds. So that sounds good right? And you didn't have to lift a finger. If you want to you can favourite the treasury. The treasury is then seen by your circle. More free potential exposure (apart from burning a calorie or two from moving the mouse around!).

Treasuries can also benefit your shop if you make them and here's why. The etsians you featured in your treasury are often curious about you, Or they might wish to favourite some of your items as a thank you gesture. So they might well check out your shop.
Many etsians that have been featured in treasuries say thank you by featuring you in a future treasury of theirs too. And so they cycle keeps going.

Are treasuries a great way to get exposure? Often the answer is no, it isn't like waving a magical promotions wand/ But you can't just dismiss the potential rewards. If you do make treasuries it helps if you enjoy making them, if you enjoyed it I think it shows!

So I have some helpful tips to share.

• How do I know if I have been in a treasury? Most people don't check their news feed all the time so they will miss many treasuries. If the curator didn't send you a message alerting you to the treasury feature you can simply go to the treasuries tab on the etsy homepage and search your shop name in the treasury section. 

• There is also a very very cool free tool at http://www.shmetsy.com/                                                For creating treasuries and sending the treasury convos in one full swoop. A note about shmesty, I use it in Google chrome and the only way I can get it to work is to open shmetsy (and treasuries) in 2 windows. Using 1 window to carry out my searches.

• There are also a a number of prototype teams on etsy - members of the team get trial tools. I currently use the add item to treasury from item page team and the saved item stash team. Both useful tools for treasury making and i hope etsy will implement them. 

I hope this might have been helpful!