How to Use Facebook to Promote Your Flickr Photos

Riding the digital wave has become a necessity for any serious photographer. It's no longer about pounding the pavement and networking by handing out your business card. You have to have a website with a catchy address, a photo blog, and most importantly, a Facebook! For photographers and artists alike, Facebook has become the business card of the future. Now you can accomplish all your social networking from the comfort of your home- in your pajamas even!

When Facebook first launched, I like many adults was hesitant to get involved in what I was convinced was simply a dressed-up MySpace. I finally broke down and opened a Facebook when a friend of mine told me he was getting more traffic on his photography website because he was posting daily status reports on his Facebook page, updating his friends on his photo activity. At first, Facebook only allowed you to use their basic uploader to post your photos in albums. If you had the patience, you would spend an evening simultaneously uploading to both your Flickr and your Facebook. However, since I do a lot more of my work on my Flickr account, I would rarely waste the time doing double the work. Now that Facebook has evolved even more, I discovered the ability to directly link my Flickr to my Facebook.

When you open your profile on Facebook you have the option of adding blog updates, Twitter updates, and Flickr updates. Essentially what Facebook does is accesses the digital feed for the site you enter by asking for your account information. I've learned by now that any account information I share with Facebook is relatively safe, so have no fear when allowing the site to access your Flickr! Once Facebook has linked itself to your Flickr, you will see your profle update with the trademark blue and pink dots, along with thumbnails of your most recent uploads. This update automatically posts to your profile where all of your friends have the opportunity to click and view your entire Flickr photostream.

An added bonus to this is that once you have a presence on Facebook, you realize that everything you post is searchable. Anyone who shares an interest in photography or simply wants to find some nice photos to hang on their walls can search, find you, and add you, thus gaining the ability to view your daily Flickr updates. Since I added this application, the traffic on my Flickr account has almost doubled, as has the traffic on my photoblog which is also linked to my Facebook. My sales have also increased on my website as a result of the increased traffic that Facebook has directed to my work.

Ultimately, every photographer needs to become familiar with all of the online, digital options for promoting their work- so get on Facebook, open an account, and get started linking your photos! To see it in action, you can find me on Facebook by searching kate@asylumaveartists.com. Happy linking!