Personal pictures go to Instagram, general photography goes to Flickr. Business-related images (such as charts) go to Google+ and from there to other networks. That’s how I have now decided to share my photos attempting to keep things organized.
First, let me explain how I have been sharing pictures until very recently.
After all the shooting and editing is done on the PC, I transfer the photos to my Google account (Google Photos to be precise). From there, given the benefit of the… cloud, I can access and share the photo from all the devices. So, using my smartphone I am able to decide how and where I wanted to upload the photo.
In short, I shared the same photo in all social media thanks to some software, resulting in the same feed across all of my social profiles. Here’s a video of how I do that exactly .
What’s the problem with that?
The problem is that most of my personal (and funny) moments shouldn’t make it to my Flickr profile or other profiles that I’m mostly using for business purposes (think of Linkedin). On the other hand, not being a professional photographer, I didn’t want people to think I’m trying to become one by looking at my Instagram’s landscape photos, for example.
Also, sharing the same pic in all of my profiles did require some time and effort on my part, despite the automation I have implemented. Copying and pasting the text, adding/removing some hashtags accordingly and reuploading the picture made photo-sharing a cumbersome task. Some photos didn’t make it online for that reason alone.
What’s the meaning of taking a picture if you are not showing it to the world or spreading your message? So, even today, looking at some unpublished, fully-edited photos makes me sad.
On the other hand, posting mixed kind of photos results to a mixed feeling for viewers. What’s the deal with this Jim? Is he a photographer? Is he documenting his life? Is he reviewing cameras and stuff? Does he use pictures to promote his work? Does he randomly post images for the sake of it?
Here is my plan for sharing photos!
Flickr
I take many photos throughout the day. The ones I am not part of can be used on Flickr. Those can be images of a product, of my home city, of a nice scenery, street or nature photography. In fact, ANY of those photos can be used by others.
So, I always keep this in mind: can third parties use that photo? If yes, I’ll share it to Flickr at first and to my Google+ photography collection right after that. From there, word will be spread automatically to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn via the process I linked to in the beginning. All social posts will direct back to the full-sized, full resolution photo at Flickr for anyone to share, download and possibly use. And if you are laughing at that prospect, Motley Fool (look here and here ), FastCompany (here and here), Contrastly and MakeUseOf have already been using photos of mine regularly! Huh!
Let’s also not forget the benefits of one of your photo making it into the Flickr Explore!
If people wouldn’t be interested in making use of the photo, because my ugly face destroys the moment or no one cares how my everyday life looks like, I’d share it to Instagram. Of course, that stands as long as it’s a good photo that I do want to share in the first place. Otherwise, hard disks have plenty of space for bad pictures.
From Instagram, the photo will be copied automatically to my Facebook and Twitter feed. Given the personal nature of these photos, I feel more creative and lately I’ve been adding an artistic/comic style on them. For an added bonus, there’s no need to be a pixel-peeper for these pics, since they will be greatly compressed by Instagram/Facebook, saving me valuable time. The goal here is telling a quick story, not producing the perfect photo. These photos used to be copied over to my Google+ feed but no more.
As a result, Facebook and Twitter end up containing all of my photos, making them a bit confusing. But you see, I do not care. I share on Facebook because most people use that as often as they check their emails (marketing 101) and on Twitter because images don’t take a lot more space that the regular tweets. Besides, Twitter is my main to-go network when it comes to sharing JUST TEXT! So, follow me on Twitter for EVERYTHING I share with the world.
In a nutshell, there are now two destinations for my photos: Instagram and Flickr. I <Click>, edit and upload to ONE of those communities depending on what I described above. If it’s Instagram, my work is done. If it’s Flickr, I’ll share the photo to Google+ as well, so that it appears to your favorite social network, because, let’s admit it, who visits Flickr every day?
Personal photo? I’ll show it to you on Instagram. Non-personal, business, general photo? I’ll show it on Google+, directing you to Flickr. I hope that works out.
Remember, each social network excels at something. We don’t have to use all of them in the same, universal way. Now, tell me, what’s your favorite photo-sharing network?
Featured photo: tulpahn/Shutterstock
