AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Building an Online Community Of Loyal and Vocal Users - The Wall Street Journal

Internet Marketplace Etsy Embraces Forums, Blogs, Social Sites to Get People to Spread the Word

Etsy Inc., an online marketplace for handmade goods, offers a host of ways for its customers to connect with the company and each other.

These include user profiles, forums, blogs and a rating-and-feedback system for the site’s 800,000 registered users, including crafters and artisans who sell their wares on the site.

But Etsy also has embraced ways that its customers interact with one another outside of the company’s domain — mainly a handful of social-networking sites created by Etsy.com fans.

Among them is We Love Etsy, a site created by Lis Kidder, a 28-year-old lawyer and glass-jewelry designer in Fairfax, Va. We Love Etsy has 2,780 members who build their own profile pages, interact with each other and post reviews of handicrafts among other things.

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