Getting your SL photos out there

[JulsToffy]

Hi all  I hope this question is allowed!

How do you folks promote and share your SL photography? I love decorating, so I post pictures on Flickr, recently on FB as well. But I can barely get over 20 favourites on a photo. Perhaps, it's a vanity metric lol but I would love to share it more and maybe find friends and connections this way. Majority of pictures I see on Flickr get over 100 favs! I'm wondering what you folks do to achieve that? Thanks in advance

[Rowan Amore]

39 minutes ago, JulsToffy said:

Hi all  I hope this question is allowed!

How do you folks promote and share your SL photography? I love decorating, so I post pictures on Flickr, recently on FB as well. But I can barely get over 20 favourites on a photo. Perhaps, it's a vanity metric lol but I would love to share it more and maybe find friends and connections this way. Majority of pictures I see on Flickr get over 100 favs! I'm wondering what you folks do to achieve that? Thanks in advance

I checked out your Flickr and the first thing I'd say is to add many many more people to your Friends list.  If you notice, those other pics with 100s of Likes are people who have 1000s of friends.  You could also use Twitter which a lot of people have started using recently because of the Flickr changes.  

[Charalyne Blackwood]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

I checked out your Flickr...

I couldn't find her Flickr 😵

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

I couldn't find her Flickr 😵

Link in her inworld profile.

[JulsToffy]

3 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

I checked out your Flickr and the first thing I'd say is to add many many more people to your Friends list.  If you notice, those other pics with 100s of Likes are people who have 1000s of friends.  You could also use Twitter which a lot of people have started using recently because of the Flickr changes.  

ah thank you, it does seem like a lot of people follow quite a few people! All the more inspiration I'm going on a follow and fav spree!

 

2 hours ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

I couldn't find her Flickr 😵

Wops, sorry, what Rowan said! I wasn't sure I should link it or not 😅

[Rowan Amore]

39 minutes ago, JulsToffy said:

ah thank you, it does seem like a lot of people follow quite a few people! All the more inspiration I'm going on a follow and fav spree!

 

Wops, sorry, what Rowan said! I wasn't sure I should link it or not 😅

You can add your flickr link in your signature line as I do.  Access that on your forums profile.

[Charalyne Blackwood]

2 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Link in her inworld profile.

Logging in now...couldn't earlier 😮

[Charalyne Blackwood]

Oh my it's delightful Juls!

 

Edited September 5, 2022 by Charalyne Blackwood

[JulsToffy]

26 minutes ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

Om my it's delightful Juls!

 

aw thank you! 🥰

[PekeNL]

All you gotta do is spam it everywhere. It's a machine. You spam it, people like it, people follow and you do the same. 

Don't hope to get any meaningful interaction though..

[sandi Mexicola]

add yourself to as many SL groups as you can find.  and then add your pictures to them.  

On 9/5/2022 at 6:21 PM, PekeNL said:

All you gotta do is spam it everywhere. It's a machine. You spam it, people like it, people follow and you do the same. 

Don't hope to get any meaningful interaction though..

Many people on Flickr trade favorites for favorites, without looking each other's pictures.  One way to get a lot of favorites is to favorite a lot of pictures of others.  

[PekeNL]

Yeah. It must feel so good being 'SL Flickr famous'... 

[Love Zhaoying]

15 hours ago, sandi Mexicola said:

add yourself to as many SL groups as you can find.  and then add your pictures to them.  

Many people on Flickr trade favorites for favorites, without looking each other's pictures.  One way to get a lot of favorites is to favorite a lot of pictures of others.  

Sounds like a modern version of the old "web rings". Pages that linked to each other to get more attention. Early early days - even BBS rings, pre-internet.

[JulsToffy]

15 hours ago, sandi Mexicola said:

add yourself to as many SL groups as you can find.  and then add your pictures to them.  

Many people on Flickr trade favorites for favorites, without looking each other's pictures.  One way to get a lot of favorites is to favorite a lot of pictures of others.  

yeah, that seems like how most people go about it i like seeing all kinds of photos when I look through groups I joined!

makes me wonder if there are spaces in and outside of SL where photographers, decorators, etc, chat? it does seem like some people know each other, at some level, so I'm definitely keeping an eye out for such places.

[sandi Mexicola]

You could try photography classes, I assume there would be photographers there: https://www.facebook.com/groups/206350456439067   

And, (from another message board) I haven't checked this out yet, but plan to: "Focus is also a very active Photography Group in Second Life and it's worth joining their group. They organize competitions and tutorials."

[sandi Mexicola]

2 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Sounds like a modern version of the old "web rings". Pages that linked to each other to get more attention. Early early days - even BBS rings, pre-internet.

Yes.  And really, sometimes it is a choice: do you want a lot of favs, or do you want people to look at your work?  They are not necessarily the same thing.  

There are even groups for SL photography that have rules like: "Post 1, Fav 4"

[Charalyne Blackwood]

On 9/8/2022 at 10:47 AM, sandi Mexicola said:

Yes.  And really, sometimes it is a choice: do you want a lot of favs, or do you want people to look at your work?  They are not necessarily the same thing.  

There are even groups for SL photography that have rules like: "Post 1, Fav 4"

I'd prefer my work be appreciated by few than blankly liked by many. I put them up at Flickr and a few groups there

[JeromFranzic]

3 minutes ago, Charalyne Blackwood said:

I'd prefer my work be appreciated by few than blankly liked by many. I put them up at Flickr and a few groups there

This! I'm surprised that my SL flickr gets more views than my RL flickr. Then again... I've been spending more time taking photos in world vs RL street shooting lately. *shrug*

[Charalyne Blackwood]

Now available at Deviant Art!

 

https://www.deviantart.com/charlieblackwood

[Nalates Urriah]

 

@JulsToffy Notice on Flickr that images with lots of views (what you  most likely want) and favs have posted the image to a number of Flickr groups. So, start joining groups and posting your images to appropriate groups. Notice which groups popular images are posted in.

The free account is limited to posting in 30 groups. So, post one image in 30 and post a second image in a different 30 and so on. When people see an image they like they will often come to see what other images you have posted.

Go through the people's images you follow and fav the images you like. Notices will show them you are fav'ing their images. So 5 or 6 or more fav's is very noticeable. Most are curious and come to look at your images.

Also your keyword tags. Your tags need to be appropriate. Don't trick people for views. It generally backfires when tags are misleading. Notice the tags on popular images.

If you are going to post 3 images in a day, avoid posting them all at the same time. Post them a couple of hours apart. I think most of have a stream of new images that moves pretty fast. So, you are more likely to have more eyes likely to see one of your images.

[BillFletcher]

On 9/5/2022 at 9:53 AM, Rowan Amore said:

add many many more people to your Friends list.

This is the key. Add people like crazy. Many of them will add you in return and then they will see your pictures and like them. After a while though you might just notice it is all just a silly game that has little to do with whether your pictures are any good.

Edited October 13, 2022 by BillFletcher

[Rowan Amore]

50 minutes ago, BillFletcher said:

This is the key. Add people like crazy. Many of them will add you in return and then they will see your pictures and like them. After a while though you might just notice it is all just a silly game that has little to do with whether your pictures are any good.

I used to add people who sent requests.  I have stopped doing that and have actually gone through and deleted almost 1/2 whose pictures are either nothing but 47585 shots of the same sex scene or ALL their pictures are tilted or sideways.  If it's a blatant grab just to up their count, I ignore those, too.  I'll only add people now whose pictures I genuinely enjoy.

[Nikolai Fellini]

I used Flickr to post my SL pics back in 2007, was away from SL photography for 15 years, and restarted taking SL pics & posting again on Flickr two weeks ago.

What I have always done and still do, is look at the SL groups on Flicker to find images I really like. On the ones I like, I post a comment & follow the artist.

I may use "Faves" differently than most, but I only fave pics that have some artistic or technical quality I want to learn from. By keeping these incredible pics in my Faves folder I can refer back to them often. So I may trade comments, but not faves.

I have found the Flickr community to be very open and supportive, and many do follow me back.

[Jackson Redstar]

if only there was some benefit to being "Flickr Famous" like there was being a famous "influencer" like free travel, hotel rooms, dinner, or any number of awesome things that come from 500 likes on TikTok or Instagram! LOL

[SodaGnome]

10 hours ago, Jackson Redstar said:

if only there was some benefit to being "Flickr Famous" like there was being a famous "influencer" like free travel, hotel rooms, dinner, or any number of awesome things that come from 500 likes on TikTok or Instagram! LOL

I got banned on Instagram. They didn't tell me why but I think it's because I could not decide what name I wanted and changed it like 5 times. You can sure get crazy numbers on TikTok but I've never tried it. I just noticed one guy on Big Brother TV show was getting one million views for funny dancin videos.