SDuffyPhotography.blog

Marketing: The Flickr Way

When I first started thinking about selling my photos online, I was considering using this blog and my SmugMug site as the focal points of my online marketing efforts. I figured Flickr would stay in the background because I couldn’t sell photos there and, unless I changed my settings, people could download them or “blog” them for free. Then I woke up. Flickr is the ultimate photographer’s network! How could Flickr not be used by the aspiring professional photographer?

So I started thinking of how I could use Flickr to market my own photography. After a year and a half of browsing through Flickr and uploading almost 3,000 photos, here are a few things I came up with…

NOTE: Some of these things I’ve done, others I have yet to do… Your mileage may vary.

JOIN Flickr!

This may seem like a no-brainer but, over the last few months of browsing photo blogs I’m astonished at how many new photographers don’t appear to have a Flickr account. I’m not saying it’s impossible to build a photo business without it, but when you can get an account for free and a pro account for only $25, why wouldn’t you? It’s arguably the best (and most engaging) way to get eyeballs on your work. All you need is a Yahoo! account. Go now.

Put some effort into your uploaded photos

Upload in the right order

Flickr allows you to change the layout of your main page. The layout I use can be seen below:

Click on image for larger version…

Let’s look at this a bit. There is one main image and a few sets that you can see as soon as you visit my page.

After the jump, tips on tagging, groups, cleaning up your stream, and being social!

More »

Tags: business, flickr, marketing, sell, tips

Looking for photo work? Let the work find you!

Trying to sell your photos but not quite sure how, or where, to find buyers? Let Pixish help you… Pixish essentially lets people who need a photo ask the photo community directly for it. You, as the photographer, decide which project inspires you, take and submit your photos, and let the community decide which is the best! From their blog:

“On Pixish you’ll find Assignments from people who need visual art for all kinds of projects. Each Assignment will have different requirements and rewards. If one inspires you, you can submit. The Pixish community can then vote up the best submissions. In the end, the Publisher who started the Assignment will choose a winner and give out any listed rewards.” (link)

Sounds pretty cool. Not only does it provide an avenue to sell your photos, it may provide some inspiration for new and exciting photo projects!

Check out this Photopreneur article for more information.

The site only launched a few days ago, but I signed up for an account and I look forward to reporting on my experiences as the site matures.

Tags: business, photos, pixish, projects, sell