I’ve heard several suggestions for increasing the number of views of photos in one’s Flickr stream. These include posting limited numbers of pictures each time, posting early in the day so that buzz is generated early about good photos, and making sure that you post pictures of interest to begin with. I’ve found another sure-fire way to get lots of hits on your photos, and it goes something like this…
- Follow popular user-contribution sites such as BoingBoing or Fark.
- Wait until one of those sites posts a link to a Flickr group.
- Immediately post one or more photos to that group (assuming they fit the group’s requirements.)
- Sit back and watch your hits grow.
The first time this happened was back in May. BoingBoing posted a link to a group that features photos of stacks of books. The idea was to take a picture of what you’re reading now and post it to the group. I posted the photo below:
The photo currently has 280 views, which was far too many for just a simple photo.
The next incident happened over the weekend, with even more startling results. This time, BoingBoing posted a link to a group entitled "Bad Signage." I had four photos that fit the bill, so I posted them.
Within just a couple of days, these photos have jumped from having views in the low teens to having views of 1500+.
Along with these came comments that I consider typical of BoingBoing readers. Or, at least, typical of those inclined to leave comments. As evidenced by the comments on my "Clean Dirt" photo above and by the comments on my "Yellow and Red" post from several months back, these folks tend to be literalists, and have a hard time with sarcasm or paroday (oddly enough.) They seem more intent on making corrections than on appreciating irony or an odd juxtaposition of words. Oh well. At least lots of folks are looking.
[tags]BoingBoing, Bad Signage, Flickr, Signs[/tags]