How to Get Your Photos Explored on Flickr – Improve Your Chances by Performing Some Simple Actions

The “Explore” function in Flickr showcases the top most interesting photos or videos, for a given day. There are thousands of photographs uploaded on Flickr every minute – millions of images each day. Still, in each 24-hour period only the best 500, “most interesting or interestingness” uploaded images are “Explored”. These images are chosen through a secret algorithm only known by the folks at Flickr. Just the sheer number of photos uploaded makes it very challenging for your images to be Explored and diminishes your chances. But, do not lose hope! I’ve had 68 photos Explored and I’m going to explain some ways for you to increase the odds of having your photos showcased.

 

7 Tips to increase your chances of getting your photos Explored

1. Make sure to take technically correct, creative, high quality photos. Do not upload too many images; a maximum of 5 per day will be more than enough as long as they are your best 5. You want to make sure your photos get noticed and not lost in the shuffle.  I normally don’t upload more than 1 or 2 at a time.

2. The photos that you upload must be deemed interesting in order to be showcased. This occurs when people tag your photos and comment on them. Comments and photos tagged as favorites by others will increase the chances your photo will be qualified as “interesting”. Moreover, photos that users select as a favorite seem to help your chances of your photo being Explored. You should tag your images with keywords so that other Flickr users can find them and comment on them, this also helps search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) find your photos. Users have the option to search photos by keyword, so this can be extremely valuable.

3. You can also choose your favorites from other people’s photos and comment on theirs too. When you do so, you increase your chances of being noticed and your photography viewed. Usually people reciprocate by viewing your photo stream and may comment and favorite your photos.You will help others, your photography will be recognized and you might make new friends.

4. Post your images to appropriate groups. Be careful not to spam, but stay participative. Show that you are active and involved. However, do not post the same image to more than 5 groups because this will affect the chances of your photo being Explored. Also, be sure to post your image to groups relevant to your photograph. For example, don’t post a picture of a car to a flower group.

5. Be friendly and generous with your comments, Flickr is first of all about sharing our passion for photography.

6. Avoid re-posting the same photo over and over again, this will be counterproductive and can affect your credibility, this will almost guarantee that your photo will never be Explored.

7. It is not a good idea to post your photos to groups that require you to comment or favorite other photos in the group as a condition of posting to that group. This can have a negative impact on your chances of your photo being Explored.

Now that you know what to do and what not to do on Flickr, you are one step closer to getting your photos Explored. Keep these tips in mind the next time you have that great photo you want to share with the world.

Filed in: Flickr • Photography
Tagged with: Flickr • photography