5 Ways to Make Your Photography Famous Using Flickr
Flickr is an image and video hosting website that began back in 2004, was acquired by Yahoo in 2005, and recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. The site became very popular among photographers and has had billions of photographs posted on it from its millions of members.
In recent years though Flickr had begun to look a bit tired and was being challenged by rivals such as Facebook, Instagram and 500px. In the last year, Yahoo decided to completely revitalise Flickr with some major updates and changes. The site is now seeing big growth again and rising popularity. If you are looking to promote your photography online I definitely recommend Flickr.
Much like with Twitter, the more you engage with other users on Flickr the more your photography will get noticed. Most people love feedback on their photos. You can favourite photos, comment on them, and share them. If you check out other people's photos that they have taken the time to post on Flickr and engage with them, they are more likely to reciprocate.
As well as engaging with people's photographs, you can also follow other members. If you do this their recent activity will show up on the Flickr homepage which acts similar to the Facebook newsfeed. You can also search for people you might know on the site, from your Yahoo, Facebook and email contact lists. If you follow other members, then they may follow you back and check out your photography.
There are hundreds of interesting groups on Flickr, some of which have tens of thousands of members and over a million images. There are groups for almost every different photographic niche you could think of, and there is a large amount of engagement in them. The more groups you join and post your photos to, the more people will view and engage with your photos.
Every week Flickr itself posts themed photography contents. One is called #TwitterTuesday, which they post every Tuesday. For this, you simply need to Tweet a photo to @Flickr on Twitter along with #TwitterTuesday and whatever that week's theme is. For Twitter Tuesday you simply need to look back through your photos, rather than taking a new one.
#FlickrFriday is different, as after it has been announced on Friday what the theme is, you then have a week to take the photo and post it in the #FickrFriday group on Flickr. The themes for these contests are announced on Flickr, Twitter and Facebook. If your photograph is chosen by Flickr from either of these weekly contests to be featured on their blog your photo will gain massive popularity. That is what happened to two of my photos recently.
I have noticed that my photos get viewed a lot more on Flickr if I share them on social networks, especially Twitter. This is because Flickr photographs appear directly in your Twitter feed, unlike Instagram photos, so they instantly gain more exposure, especially if they get retweeted.
Since my early days of Flickr, I personally feel my photography has progressed a lot. I have tried to be more creative, take more interesting photos, and make my Flickr photostream more fun for others to view. Try to produce a variety of photos and post new ones regularly.
Your photographs may look amazing even with no digital changes, but many photos can look even better with a few improvements on Photoshop or similar programs. You don't have to delve too deeply into the program to enhance your photos with a few minor tweaks such as the contrast, brightness etc.
I have been a member of the site since 2007 but didn't really pay it much attention until the recent big changes. Now every user has a terabyte of free storage space, which is absolutely massive and more than enough for even professional photographers.
These were just some of the things I have found have worked for me to get my photography noticed online. I hope this article helps you out on your way to Flickr fame. Please share if you liked/found it useful.
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