Your Flickr account is a great social marketing tool for your business! However, the trouble we often see when we create and optimise a Flickr account for our clients is that they will assign someone to keep it more or less updated with new photos, and that’s that.
You see, the Social network marketing benefits of Flickr really start to show when you get involved and use your Flickr account to participate in what other people are doing. So, how do you go about it?
Here are 12 pro tips to jump-start your Flickr social marketing. The first few deal with setting up and optimising your account, and the rest will give you some ideas on how you can join in and reap the rewards of being a part of the Flickr community. The very first tip is a friendly word of warning. Here goes:
1. Don’t try and sell a product or service directly using Flickr, or else your account could be deleted. The trick is to get your name out there, at the same time avoiding the ‘in your face’ kind of self promotion that everyone loves to hate.
2. Use your business name as your Flickr account username. The reason for this is obvious. Each time you upload a photo, post a comment or do anything with your Flickr account, your username, and hence your business name is visible to everyone you interact with.
3. Fill in your profile page and link to your websites. If people are interested enough to click to your profile, chances are they’ll want to check out your websites too.
4. Aim to get quality photos on your account, ideally the kind that people would want to share with their friends. Also include photos of your staff and events in the mix, to break the ice with potential clients.
5. Make sure that your Flickr photos are well optimised with correct titles, tags and a relevant description. If you upload many photos, this can be time consuming, so focus on the best pics and just include titles and tags for the rest.
6. Organise your photos into sets, so that people can easily find the photos that interest them.
7. As you browse through other people’s pictures, comment on the ones you find interesting. You can now also format your Flickr comments and include links. This can be a good way to build a few links back to your site, but don’t overdo it or you may be shunned or even banned for spamming. Only post links that are directly relevant to the topic at hand, and make those few links count.
8. Join a Flickr group that is closely related to your business. The idea here is not to simply submit photos to the group, but also to join in and participate by commenting on the photos of the other members who are likely to be potential clients and/or business partners. Remember, every time you post a comment, you are making your username more visible.
9. Why not start your own Flickr group? Find a topic that will be of interest to your clients and create a group around that. It could be pet snaps if you run a pet shop or grooming service, or local scenes if you are in the travel or real estate business. Just do a bit of brainstorming and come up with a good idea.
10. Once your Flickr group is up and running and you see great photos related to your group topic, you can post comments with a link back to your group, inviting the people who posted these photos to join the group.
11. Build your Flickr contacts by inviting your friends and clients to join Flickr, and also by networking with other Flickr users you meet online through your groups and so on. You will see your contacts’ new photos on your Flickr homepage and, more importantly, they will see yours too!
12. Many times you will find that one of your pictures or Flickr photo sets gets a very good ranking in Google. This is one of Flickr’s great advantages, and can be a great opportunity to add a link back to your business website. Once again, don’t do this with every photo so that you don’t get caught out spamming, but pick and choose the ones that relate to the Google searches that you are most intrested in.
13. When you come across another Flickr user who has great photos, go on their profile page and write them a testimonial. This will create a link from their profile page to your Flickr account. Of course, you should concentrate on doing this for users whose photos are related to your business, so that you hopefully attract clicks from likely clients.
14. Integrate your Flickr account with your other social media applications such as Facebook and Squidoo. On FaceBook, you can even automate this by using one of the many applications that will automatically post a note on your FaceBook profile and let your friends know when you have uploaded new photos to Flickr.
Hopefully these tips have helped you to see your Flickr account in a new light – as another powerful addition to your business’s social marketing toolbox. There’s a real lot you can do with just a little bit of time, and best of all, it’s free. Now just get out there and start network marketing like a pro
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Great tips guys,
Another tip I’d like to share is that before an entrepreneur engages with Flickr or any other social media platform, you should create a social media marketing plan (1 page is enough) that defines who you want to attract, where you want to draw them to (landing page, main site, blog, etc) after engagement on the social media platform, and create an engagement curriculum (list,schedule and types of photos, for instance)to maximize your time.
Hope that helps.
Gogo
Great Tip Gogo, I Totally Agree With You. We have jumped a step. There should be a plan and a Base or Action you are ultimately trying to achieve.
John,
Great advice – will put it into practice as soon as I can!
Jude
Let us know once you start Judith and we will have a look at your account for you.