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.