What is Flickr?
Flickr is one of the most popular online photo sharing programs available. If you join Flickr, it will take you just a few minutes to get set up and then you can start uploading and sharing your images. Flicker provides a free account that allows you to upload 100MB per month. If this is not enough, you can upgrade to Flickr PRO for $24.95 a year.
Creating your Flickr Account
Choosing Your Name
If you are using Flickr for professional reasons, you want a name that is a closely related to your professional name as possible. By making your Flickr account name close to your professional name, the search engines will be able to find you easier. You should also use your professional name in your Flickr profile. This will help your name to appear in the search engine listings more often.
Setting up Your Profile
Your profile is the best place to write a brief description about yourself and the work that you do. Include your contact information and if you have another web site, be sure to link to it here. Try not to make your profile too long as many people won’t bother to read it.
Public or Private
If you are trying to establish your photography business, you should set everything to public. The more people are able to see your work, the better. You should also set your photos to be bloggable to encourage others to promote your work. By setting your photos to ‘artwork/illustration’ instead of ‘photograph’, people can find your work easier and are able to download them faster. If you have any artwork that is considered ‘unsafe’, you need to set your level carefully. This may limit who is able to view your art.
Tag Your Photos
Another thing you need to do is tag your photos. Tags are one of the best tools you have available with Flickr. You can search for your photos simply by using the tags instead of through traditional search methods. Tags also make it easier for other people to find your work because they too can search for just tags instead of through the entire site of Flickr. Be sure to make your tags specific and not too broad like “scenic” or “painting.”
After you have established your Flickr account, you need to organize your photos. Your Flickr account can be more professional and accessible if your photos are in collections and sets. Your Flickr page can be set to show both your photostream and your collections or sets. By setting it to both, people will be able to instantly find your art without having to browse through hundreds of other people’s images.
When you use online photo sharing software, you need to keep in mind that the primary goal of many photo sharing web sites is to sell you back your own photographs in the form of prints and gifts. The online album you create probably will not allow your friends and family to download the individual photo you have sent. The images can also be deleted if no purchases are made.
Uploading your images is also easy. Flickr has 5 ways in which you can upload your photos:
• The Flickr uploadr
• The iPhoto, Aperture, or Windows XP plugins
• Upload web page
• Email
• Third-party desktop programs
Emailing your photos to Flickr is an easy method to get your photos uploaded. You will have your unique email address that you use and you can send photos to your Flickr photostream or upload them to your Flickr photostream and automatically have the pictures posted to your blog. In order to do this, you can go to Flickr’s help page and configure your email settings.
The Windows Uploader is available in all languages that Flickr offers and the Mac version is only available in English. Flickr is working to expand the languages so new languages will be added soon.
