So many options where to put portfolio

[gunjankv]

<p>Hi<br>

Having many options is good and bad. Bad because it is confusing. Not sure at the end of the day which one would be right place from where your sale can be initiated.<br>

I want to put my portfolio or rather common man word photographs on some website, but not sure which way to go. I am connected to hundreds of friends on Facebook.<br>

1. Should I create facebook album or facebook page?<br>

2. Flickr<br>

3. Own website<br>

4. Any other good site to present photographs<br>

Ok, end objective is to have larger audience see the photographs, like and/or comment on them and it should provide best chance of sale of photograph.<br>

Any suggestions?</p>

 

[robertbanks]

<p>I think you need a multi-pronged approach - use them all! But plan your strategy.</p>

<p>Have your own website, and definitely use flickr since it is somehow aligned to google and can be used to drive traffic to your site - there is an excellent article on photo.net "Harnessing the Power of flickr" : <a href="../column/harolddavis/finding-an-audience-for-your-photography/using-flickr-for-marketing/index.published.adp">http://www.photo.net/column/harolddavis/finding-an-audience-for-your-photography/using-flickr-for-marketing/index.published.adp</a></p>

<p>Google now visits my site everyday since I started using the tips in the above article, before that it was only an occasional visitor, and I also get search engines from as far afield as China and Russia. My website also uses SEO friendly URLs, no flash and regularly auto-generates and submits sitemaps.</p>

<p>I post teasers, samples and lower res images to flickr and make sure they are well titled, tagged and described and link back to my own website (and have a watermark to my website too). I find within a day of posting an image to flickr it will be on google, and my images are now rising in the page rankings for searchies in the area in which I specialise.</p>

<p>I do use facebook, I have a business page and a personal page (I wish I had separately created a personal phootgraphy page now). I find the personal page helpful since for the subject area I'm involved with I get contacts and info about relevant events. On the business page I post the same images as I do to flickr, and make sure there is a relevant description and also a link back to my site. I cross-share posts between my personal and business page since I have a lot of friends on my personal page, and not so many likes on my business page (because I haven't yet promoted it actively).</p>

<p>I've also created profiles on websites related to the industry I'm targetting, and also on general business directory websites in relevant categories.</p>

<p>I treat my website as my main presence (since it offers services to online clients), and use the others as ways of raising its profile and driving traffic to it. This is part of a longer term strategy aimed at creating a brand. I'm not yet operating it as a business, but that is the future aim (PS in the above I'm not referring to my personal photography site here, robsheppard.com, in case you intended to research it, but a parallel endeavour that I am running which I intend to develop into a B2B operation).</p>

<p>HTH,<br>

Rob</p>

[gunjanvaishnav]

<p>Thank you so much Rob. Every word of the article is useful. I will spend time to organize things before I publish on Flickr</p>

[aarushi_sharma]

<p>such a helpful information. Thanks Rob.</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>You're a beginner and yet you're talking about selling your photographs. Just in case you haven't read much about this, selling photographs is not easy for most people. Do you know many people with photographs on their walls that don't have a particular meaning for them, or taken by a famous photographer?<br>

If I were starting from scratch I'd go the Flickr route, and learn what it takes to get people to look at and comment on your photographs. Once you've mastered that ( and you'll need to master it because otherwise with the vast number of images on Flickr, few will even see your pictures) you will be able to see how using multiple approaches together can keep you in front of people. </p>

[gunjanvaishnav]

<p>@David - I appreciate your inputs.. However, what I do not agree is: Even a beginner photographer can have eye and his own technique and style which can beat a pro who might be in field from years.<br>

Its not easy for sure..</p>

[michaeljlawson]

<p>I try to use my facebook <strong>page</strong> as a teaser to my 500px.com portfolio, and my facebook <strong>profile</strong> more for family and friends to point them to my Flickr acct. I also have my photo.net and imagepro sites. Lots of options as you pointed out.</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>What you say is right, and I guess the subscript is that you think that you are, or may be, one of a tiny number of these extraordinarily talented people. Now if you think you are, then surely you'll understand that a link to some work would make people agree (or not) with that opinion and if they do consider you very talented, then they'll be more likely to want to help?</p>

<p>Of course its possible that they may not agree, and cast some doubt upon your aspirations, and that's a risk you need to run. But if you want to "recruit" people to help, its probably as well to persuade them that they aren't wasting their time, and the only way to do that is to allow people to access your work. </p>

[gunjanvaishnav]

<p>@David - Agreed on every word you wrote. I experienced exactly the same thing when I used to post some of my theme based pictures on FB wall.</p>

<p>I am going to launch my photographs on Flickr with proper concentration, classification and reach.</p>