Holga Blog

So, you have been around Flickr for a while, uploading some great shots, but no-one is viewing/commenting/appreciating your work…what gives?

Unfortunately, with over 2 billion (view the rather anticlimatic 2 billionth here ) photos on Flickr, if you want some exposure you need to court it. Like most things in life: Flickr is one giant circle-jerk.

Below are 10 top tips on how to get your photos noticed:

1.Comment on the photos of others

This one is dead simple: If you see a photo you like, comment that you like it! Everyone likes getting comments on their photos, it’s a warm and fuzzy give/take relationship. Don’t however just comment for the sake of commenting; have something to say, whether it’s just that you like the colours, or even have a story to tell (I once wrote about a 4 paragraph comment story about how I was once,possibly, within a mile of a building in Vallejo,CA, that someone took a photo of, I think i was drunk :-/ ).

If you leave warm comments, people will probably take the time to view some of your photos, and possible comment on some of yours.

2.Add Favourites

Again, really simple, effective way. If you see a photo you like, favourite it. This has many knock on affects: People will favourite-back on some of your photos, which then gives people another avenue to access your photos: via the other users favourite list. When I’ve found a photographer I like, I tend to check out their favourites to discover other similarly-excellent photographers, and the cycle continues.

Don’t just start favouriting everything, although possible, it’s not great to have 990345 favourites, as it kinda makes it difficult for other people to discover other stuff through your favourites.

3.Add your ‘good’ photos to group pools

Got some photos you think are good? Join some groups and add them to the pools. People can browse the pools, and find your photos. Make sure photos stand out:remember in pools that you need to grab peoples’ attention on a grid of 30 thumbnail-size photos.

Some other tips with groups:

–Don’t add your photo to every group under the sun, handpick your groups that you think your photo will add value to.

–Add only a few a day, even if the groups have a unlimited quota for additions. No-one wants to see a whole group pool page full of the same photos by the same photographer.

4.Add People as Contacts

This is one of the most important ways to get noticed. If you like the photos of someone on Flickr, add them as a contact. They may reciprocate back and add you as a contact, which means every time you add photos to Flickr, they will appear on your contacts front page(if they have added you too), which gives a lot of exposure very quickly if you have many contacts. I find myself spending more time looking at my contacts photos as I know they are the ones I like, so in turn I probably spend more time commenting/favouriting my contacts photos. Another thing to consider is that, similar to favourites, people can view other peoples’ contacts, so a lot of the time, I view the contacts of my contacts to see who else has similar tastes and view/comment on their photos.

5.Add photos ‘gently’

If you have time, only add around 5 photos to your Flickr daily. This may take a lot of time, and you may not have the patience(I definitely don’t!), but it makes sense if you have a lot of contacts. Your contacts, by default,only see your last 5 upload photos a day, so you want them to see more, just add fewer daily. This helps too with point no.3, so you can spread out adding photos to groups.

6.Get a Pro account, check your Stats

For $19.99 (edit: now $24.95, thanks Kate!)a year you can buy a ‘pro’ account. Not only do you get a “I’m better than you” little ‘pro’ symbol next to your name, you also get unlimited uploads, the ability to great collections, storage of your originals AND stats.

The statistics are a bit like google analytics for your photos. You can see how many views/favourites your photos have had over a certain timeframe, and where people are viewing them from (i.e referral links etc).

How does this help you gain exposure? Well, it doesn’t directly, but you can analyse your stats and figure out why certain photos have more viewings/favourites/comments and replicate it. Is it because you added it to a certain group? Is it because you added it to a discussion board? Use the stats to find out..

7.Maximise your ‘interestingness’, get on Explore

Flickr has an explore page, on which it automatically puts photos with a lot of ‘interestingness’. No-one knows for sure how Flickr computates interestingness, but people have found that the photos tend to:

–have bright,bold colours

–look good as a thumbnail

–have lots of views within a small time frame

and lot’s of other stuff (Wesley Hein has written about it extensively on his excellent blog here).

So, there’s no guarenteed way to get on Explore, but you can give it you best shot. Point no.4 helps here again, if you add a photo, all your contacts may look at it in a short time frame, and it may get picked up.

Want to check if you have featured on explore? Big Huge Labs to the rescue. Simply type in your flickr name, and it will tell you if you are featured:

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/scout.php

8.Don’t be a comment whore!

etc etc

We all know the ones, those god-awful ‘STAR AWARDS, RATE 4 AND GET 1 GOLD HUG blah blah’ groups. The comments are worthless, people aren’t even looking at your photo when they comment. I have seen so many good photos ruined by those horrible animated gifs in the comments section. One meaningful comment from a contact is better than 50 stupid animated gifs.

It cheapens your art. Don’t do it.

9.Take part in group discussions

If you want to make a point about something, go ahead, that’s what group discussions are for. If you think you can answer a question posed by someone else: go for it! If someone has answered my question before, I check out their photostream, if someone has abused me, I do too! Groups are a direct way of interaction about the thing you love, don’t pass it up.

If you are courteous and fair, people will respect you and look at your photostream/photos, or conversely you can be a complete prick and people will probably be curious and look at your photostream…you decide!!

10.Tags Tags Tags Tags Tags Tags

It may seem like a chore, but tag your photos as best you can. Tag everything to do with your photo, as this is the way to pick up random viewings. People search Flickr for photos, whether for personal use, business use(especially with the Getty Images takeover), or other uses. The tags are searched in the Flickr search algorithm, so tagging is incredibly important. That said, I’m lazy and never do it very well at all.

Random viewings/favourites do happen, although they always seem pervert-related! For example, I uploaded this photo from a street party in Dusseldorf recently, just some random hairy man:

And someone commented “sexy. I would love to rub his chest“. After looking at that persons favourites, they appear to have a hairy-fetish! All the photos were of incredibly hairy men and sometimes of their incredibly hairy ‘appendage’…eek! Check it out yourself by clicking on scary hairy man up there!

So that rounds it up. Remember folks, just enjoy your photography and go with the flickr-flow! Don’t force things, don’t spam comment/favourites, and show true passion in your comments.

Anyone got any other tips they want to add?

Andrew (admin, although it doesn’t appear as admin anymore for some reason, must have broken the site!).