Do you have any idea how important testimonials are for a good “career” on Flickr? Think about it: how important are testimonials in general, in areas like marketing, advertising, and so many others? They’re the lifeblood of so many businesses! They can help you tremendously AND you get the chance to let other people do the bragging for you!

Testimonials are guaranteed to raise your perceived value in the eyes of others. If you’ve read a book on influence and persuasion like Robert Cialdini’s “Influence: Science and Practice” you’ve probably heard of the Law of Social Proof: in crowd psychology theories, people are known to follow the lead of others, to follow the crowd, so to say. That’s why you need to have a lot of people state how good you are.

How do you get testimonials?

Well, it’s not that hard, actually. Since we’ve been talking about the psychology of persuasion, let me introduce you to another law: The Law or Reciprocity. It states that people usually repay in kind what has been given to them.

So my advice is to start off by finding several photographers in the community that you truly admire. A good idea is not to pick the most well-known among them who already have hundreds of testimonials. Try to dig up those people who really do a good job but are not well known yet and don’t have too many testimonials yet. I’m sure  many of them will appreciate a few words from a fellow flickrist and will respond in the same manner.

So, to sum up: start giving testimonials, start collecting testimonials. You’ll see how valuable they’ll prove to be in the long run.

Have you ever wondered what kind of photographic equipment is used to take this or that picture? Well, there’s a very interesting phenomenon we saw on Flickr and we’d like to share it with you today. Many photographers post pictures of their “tools” on Flickr. Just do a search for something like “photo gear” or “photo equipment” and you’ll see what I’m talking about! Heck, there’s even a group where people show off their tools.

Here are a few sample images:

Click on the image to read all the details and hover over each tool to see the notes.

Click on the image to see al the details about each individual piece of equipment.

Again, click on the image to see the juicy details.

And how exactly can you benefit from this?

Well, are you an expert in judging which tools are to be used in which situation. Have you got a crystal clear idea on what gear is needed for certain types of photography? If not, here’s how you can benefit from this Flickrist exhibitionism. Start off by doing a search on the keywords indicated above (”photo gear”, “photo equipment”, etc.). Check out some of the individual pictures – especially the ones that appeal to you. Familiarize yourself with a photographer’s equipment and then check out his photostream to see if there are pictures you really like. Now you can make a link between the equipment that was used and the photo that was taken. And, of course, because people are so sociable on Flickr, you can ask for clarifications whenever in doubt.

The world’s #1 searchengine offers an image search function since 2001. Millions of people use it every single day to search for images. Do you see an opportunity? If yes, read on…

What’s more interesting about Google is that the images that get indexed in their database are often displayed in regular search result pages – like in the following example:

Google search results often include images

In the example above, a search for Burj Al Arab (one of the world’s most expensive hotels) returned among the first results a series of images.

How would you like to see one of your photos show up in the first results of a search engine?

Flickr and Google Image Search: a case study

If you’ve ever visited the capital of Scotland, you probably heard about a famous place called Mary King’s Close. Someone took a picture of it and uploaded it on Flickr. After a few months, the photographer noticed a lot of traffic coming to that image. Having a Pro account, he immediately checked the referral stats (i.e. where the visits were coming from). And, to his surprise, he found out that most of his traffic came from Google and Yahoo. Here’s a screenshot of his stats:

No less than 88% of this image's traffic came from Google, while only 4% of the visits originated on Flickr...

So the question is…

How Do You Optimize Your Images for Google?

In order to get the best answer to this question, I read 4 SEO articles about image optimization:

• Optimizing for Google Image Search
• Google Image Search Optimization: Paris Hilton Pics
• Case Study: Google Image Search and Marissa Mayer
• Search Engine Placement Using Google Image Search

Apparently, it’s not rocket science. It all comes down to the following elements: image file name, ALT tag, the text that surrounds the image and links.

Here’s the dissection:

• image file name: in Flickr, you have no influence upon it, so you might as well forget about it and concentrate on the other factors
• ALT tag: the alt tag contains the actual title of the image and your Flickr screen name. Be careful when selecting a title for your image – make it as relevant as you can.
• text surrounding the image: this includes the title (displayed above), the image description, the tags and the geotag. Focus as much attention as you can on making them relevant. Use a tool like the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to dig some good quality keywords and use them wisely on the page.
• links referencing to your image: now that’s really important. Try to post links directly to the image you want to optimize on other websites – discussion forums, blog comments, and any other places. One example would be posting samples of photos taken with a particular lens on a review website (check out this page and read some of those reviews to see what I’m talking about…)

One more thing to bear in mind: try not to go for the oversaturated niches (like: “Eiffel Tower” or “Barrack Obama”), but rather for keywords where the likelihood of having lots of competition is minimal (like in our example: “Mary King’s Close” in Edinburgh).

What You Should Know About Search Engine Traffic

• Most users coming from searchengines don’t have Flickr accounts. The photo in our case study has been viewed 4,900 times in just a few months, yet it has been faved only twice – also, it has accumulated an impressive number of 2 comments! Don’t expect too many Flickr-specific benefits.
• Photos that become famous on the internet are often copied and used without permission. If you want to prevent your image from being misused, here are some minimal precautions to take:
  • Make sure you marked it as copyrighted in Flickr
  • State your copyright terms explicitly in the photo’s description (”This image is copyrighted. Do not use it without permission.“)
  • Watermark your photo.
• Visitors coming from searchengines tend to leave as quickly as they come.
  • To really leverage this traffic, make sure you point the direction to the right target.

Do you know what Creative Commons is? Well, simply put, it’s an alternative to the Copyright license. While the Copyright license is very restrictive and gives most of the rights to the author of the work, CC allows people a lot more flexibility when they want to use your work.

You can choose a set of conditions you wish to apply to your work:

Attribution. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.

Noncommercial. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial purposes only.

No Derivative Works. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

Share Alike. You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

You can use a combination of the above conditions and make your own personalized CC license. Visit their website for more details on how to do it.

Why on Earth would anyone want to use a CC license?

Well, because lots of people are desperately looking for free content to use. Some can’t afford to pay it (NGOs, start-up businesses). Some can, but prefer to look for free alternatives to cut their budget.

What does that mean for you? It means that if you remove the restrictions to your photos, hungry hordes will flock to them like moths to a flame. It’s pretty much the equivalent of the age-old marketing technique of giving out some ‘free samples’ to help people discover your brand.

There are hundreds of CC search engines that people use to hunt for such content. If you make it into the results pages of those search engines, you will increase your visibility by dozens.

So here’s my advice to you: always have some photos with Creative Commons license.

Use them as “bait” to get people to visit your photostream and then direct their attention to the other things you have in store for them.

A few words of advice…

The less restrictive the license is, the more attention you will get to your content. It’s commonsense. People will be looking for photos to use commercially, to make derivative works upon and so on. The more you’re willing to let go of your rights, the more you will gain in this game.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you should preferably choose the photos that people are really looking for. What would that be? Well, just follow the basic rules of stock photography. Here’s a link you can check out for some inspiration: Stock Photography Subject List.

After you know you have something people are looking for, make sure you tag it properly, so it can be found via the right words in the searchengines. We have the best tagging tutorial, so you know what you have to do.

People will come to your photo, but make sure you direct their attention to something else as soon as they come by. Add a comment and a link underneath your photo. Something like: “Thanks for looking at my photo. Indeed there are no restrictions to it. Please check out my portfolio or if you’re in a hurry just take a look at my best shots“. Once you got them on your page, don’t let them leave .

That’s all you need to know. If your photo is something people are really looking for, then you’ve got yourself a winner.

Has this ever happened to you? You stumble onto an astonishing photo and say to yourself “Ah, I wish I could take a photo like this.” Being able to imitate great photographers is sometimes possible, and it implies many elements, such as being at the right place at the right time, understanding the photographer’s “vision”, but also understanding the technical aspects of the picture.

Have you ever wondered what lens a photographer used in a certain photo? Have you ever wanted to know how long an image was exposed? Have you ever tried to figure out whether a flash was used or if the lighting came from other sources?

Well, believe it or not, Flickr actually allows you to see many such details of a photo!

Here’s how it works: when saving a photo into JPEG format (or other similar formats), digital cameras also leave some extra useful information in that file. That information is called EXIF data.

If the information hasn’t been altered by too much post-processing or removed by the photographer, you will normally be able to see it.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Browse to a picture you really like.
2. Scroll down and look for the “Additional Information” section in the left panel:

   

3. Click on “More properties”.

And voila! You should now see all kinds of details about how and when the image was taken. The page should look something like the following example:

From the information above we learn, for example, that the picture was taken on an autumn afternoon – more precisely, it was October 25th, and the time was 5:33 PM. If you were really into detective work, you could corroborate that with the exact sunset time on that particular day, and see how close I was to the actual sunset. You also learn that my Nikon D50’s exposure dial was set to the Aperture Priority setting and that the exposure took 1/200th of a second, which may mean that camera could as well be handheld. The white balance was set to “Cloudy weather“, although it was a sunny day – this setting helped me obtain that nice color saturation, which I later enhanced on my computer, using Adobe Lightroom 2.0 (at 4 o’clock in the morning!, according to the EXIF data).

See how many things you can discover?

Of course, knowing all the technical details in the world is often not enough to duplicate the process of taking a good picture, but it’s a great starting point.

For the other ingredients, make sure you check out our “improving your photography skills” section.

It is very easy to misuse Flickr and annoy other community members or even get your account deleted!

Here is a list of NO-NOs:

• Not taking and posting good quality photos: the main idea of making it big is to contribute with valuable content. It all starts from here.
• Not organizng your photos properly: spend a late afternoon from time to time and add some coherence to your photostream. Remove irrelevant pictures, create several sets and add your photos to them. Help me have a pleasant experience when visiting your stream.
• Spamming other people’s photos with comments: if you want to promote yourself, do it subtly. Don’t post “in-your-face” self-promotion messages. Shameless promotion is usually frowned upon on Flickr.
• Adding your photo to too many groups: it has been often said that Flickr penalizes members who add their photos to tens of groups. What you may want to do instead is to add it to five or six groups at first, then remove it from some of them before you post it to others. This way, you don’t break the unwritten rules and you get to see your photo on the front page of many groups!
• Putting irrelevant tags on your photos: again, users who are desperately to get their photos viewed many times will think it’s a smart idea to stuff tens, if not hundreds of tags that often have nothing to do with the image. Not a very bright idea. Why do it, when in you can add a wealth of tags without being irrelevant! So make sure your tags really represent your picture.
• Adding too many similar photos instead of selecting the best one for display: You should always keep your stream clean and relevant. Decide on one photo in a series and display that one. It’s more about quality than quantity: hand-picking your best shots and keeping a highly curated gallery will pay off in the long run.
• Not interacting with other people, but expecting masses of people to come and praise your photos. It’s all about a community spirit. Take the time and appreciate other people’s work. Add their photos as favorites, give them praise or constructive criticism. Think about it: if everybody refused to do these things, the community would be dead. It is small actions like these that make Flickr so dynamic.
• Not having a good profile page: as I explained before, your profile page needs to contain more than a bunch of things about you. It is your opportunity to “sell yourself” and attract people’s admiration. Don’t waste it.
• Not having a good-looking, unique avatar: your avatar is your way of “branding” yourself. And, as any experienced marketer will tell you, a good idea is to make it unique and memorable. A picture is worth a thousand words – yes, even a small one. It is what represents you throughout the community, it is the first visual element that people come in contact with when interacting with you. Try to avoid cliches and come up with something catchy that will really make an impact.
• Not putting enough effort into taking care of your photostream: you should really devote some time to doing the small things that make a difference. These include tagging and geotagging some of the photos properly, arranging them into sets and collections, adding them to groups, interacting with other people…and all the other things mentioned on this website.

Voila. Here’s my list, and I’m sure it’s far from exhaustive. What would you advise someone not to do on Flickr?

Did you know that there are more than half a million groups on Flickr? The community part of this website is what makes it so famous – and groups are clearly the best way to encourage people to socialize.

As discussed before, being active in several groups and posting relevant photos will get you a lot of attention. But have you ever thought of creating your own group? Perhaps not.

With half a million groups you would think there’s no more place for a new one – yet reality is different. First of all, most of these groups are either abandoned or poorly taken care of – which means they’re basically dead. Only a few of them are really alive and kicking. Second, you can be sure there is another niche waiting to be born, another brilliant idea to be promoted or another approach to be taken on sharing photos on Flickr. You can come up with something completely new, or simply borrow an idea that’s already existing and make it better or put a new spin on it.

What are the advantages of having your own group?

• You have the privilege of organizing your own little corner, the way you like it
• You can do whatever you like,
• You have complete control over what goes in and out

If you need inspiration, here is a quick list of groups:

• By colors: black and white, catchy colors, green is beautiful
• By theme: night images, closer an macro photography, the portrait group, movement and motion, panoramas
• By subject: sunrises and sunsets around the world, bacon, abandoned objects and places, graveyards, self-portraits, international pigeons, graffitti, UK railways, people sitting,
• By quality: awesome shots (invite only), blue ribbon photography (invite only), shield of excellence
• By technology used: Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC,
• By geography: Edinburgh, Manhattan
• By postprocessing techniques: HDR
• Artistic/conceptual: Aesthetics of failure, Less is more (minimalism),
• Games, contests, experiments: Photoshop Tennis, 10 million photos, ThisIsNow,
• Learning, exchanges: Beginners digital photography, positive criticism, DeleteMe!, Photoshop support group,
• Events: free hugs,
• Social movements, protests: free Tibet, London naked bike ride, Feminism
  
• Other: views:500

Has inspiration hit you already? If not, take a pen and a paper and start brainstorming.

Once you’re done, just go to their group creation page. But before doing that, make sure you read their groups guidelines and the FAQ related to groups on Flickr.

So, will your group be the next success? I can only wish you good luck.

PS: As soon as you create it, make sure you leave a comment and tell us about it! We may be able to help you with promoting it!

No matter how much you work on promoting your photostream, or how much time you spend socializing and networking with other people and no matter how much effort you dedicate to becoming successful on Flickr, this is still the #1 piece of advice that I would give to anyone:

TAKE GREAT PHOTOS!

This is THE most important thing you should keep in mind. It is the starting point of every successful career on Flickr. The efficiency of every single tip you will read on this website is conditioned by this crucial prerequisite. Otherwise said, the tips you are about to discover on this website will work only if your photos are of great quality.

What can you do about it?

Here are a few tips:

• Take the time to improve your photography skills. Master your equipment, learn about lighting, composition, colors and other aesthetic aspects of photography.
• Read the section on this website dedicated to using flickr to enhance your photo skills.
• Invest in better equipment.
• Take the time to improve your digital editing skills. Master Photoshop, Lightroom and any other piece of software that can help you enhance your photos.

Flickriver.com is tool that can select and display the most popular and “interesting” photos in your photostream, based on a well-thought algorithm. The tool looks at the number of views, the number of comments, the number of times your photo has been added as a favorite and calculates an “interestingness” factor.

Want to display your most interesting photos? Well, actually, the photos that have received the most attention from the community.
Simply enter your Flickr user name below and press the button:

You know how people surf the web these days…think about how you do it. It can be a very chaotic and random experience sometimes. And when it comes to websites like Flickr, their design and structure sometimes encourage this randomness.

Web surfers jump from link to link, from a profile to another…and will generally spend only a few minutes – at most – on your photostream! Sometimes, actually, they will only spend a few seconds looking at your stuff!

So why not make the most out of this short period of time and show them what they really need to see. I’m sure all your photos are interesting, but I’m also sure there are a few among them that deserve extra attention.

This tip alone can make or break your success in the Flickr world – and perhaps in the photography business.

Here are the steps:

1. Select the best photos in your stream (i.e. “the cream of the crop”) and make a “top 10″ list (or top 15, whatever you wish)
   TIP: You may want to select, for example, the ones that have been featured in Explore, those that have accumulated the highest number of views, or those that are featured on your “” page.

2. Create a new set and add all those photos to it. Call it something like “My best shots” or come up with a more creative title. The idea is to label it explicitly, so that people will know that it contains the most important segment of your work.

3. (optional) Place the set at the very top of your list – above all the other ones…or at least somewhere in the first half of your photostream page, so it gets the attention it deserves.

4. (optional) Put a link to this set under every picture in your photostream OR at least make the most out of the photos that usually get a lot of views.

This tip will help you point your visitors in the right directions and gain some control over the chaotic experience that Flickr navigation sometimes proves to be. You’ll be directing people’s attention where it should be – and make sure they’ve seen what they need to see before they leave.