Advertising, chat, ideas.

I was really saddened recently after finding out that Etsy Chat has now been closed. It was a brilliant way to promote your shop and make sales, not to mention meeting new people and having fun. Bad move, Etsy.

All is not lost, though! After some hefty, slightly frantic (and desperate) Googling yesterday, I discovered Chatsie which is a new chat site made specifically for Etsy sellers. It warmed my cockles, I tell you. That's not all, though. The real genius of this site is that you can get free advertising in the form of a mini-banner on the left hand side of the site, which means lots of new visitors and publicity especially when chat is busy! Hurrah! All you have to do is create a small 150 x 100px banner and email it to the lovely Gene, who will then upload it for you. You might not see it immediately but f you keep refreshing you'll see it after a few clicks, and let out a small squeal of excitement like I did.

I'm really interested at the moment in hearing about how people advertise and promote their shop. I'm working my arse off to get Lambcake 'out there' but it is a slow process. After you've done all the Twittering, Facebooking and blogging you do hit a little bit of a brick wall. I'm not letting it get me down though and certainly not giving up!

I'm currently waiting for some cute business cards to arrive from Moo.com, so I'm also hoping that the 'traditional' methods still work as well! I'd be really happy to hear from you if you could share any hints, tips or ideas about how to best get your Etsy shop some views and sales. I'll be posting the best ideas on here and also I'll give you a link back to your own shop, Twitter, Facebook and any other sites you may have. Get in touch!