Social Media Bible, Chapter 9
Chapter 9 A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words (Photo Sharing)
I got kind of a negative feeling for this chapter in The Social Media Bible because the author mentions quite a few things without any explanation. For example, within a two-page spread (p. 180-181), he says businesses should upload as many pictures as possible, “entering the best meta tags as possible,”…and “remember to install a free widget, gadget or plug-in to your company web site…so that it will pull your photographs from your photo sharing web site.” Earlier (p. 179) he says to upload photos to Flickr World Map or Google Earth.
Wow! He never explains WHY you should upload as many pix as possible…he never explains HOW to enter a meta tag…he never explains WHAT are these widgets, gadgets or plug-ins…he doesn’t explain WHY to upload photos to the World Map or Google Earth… I guess we’re just supposed to go figure it all out ourselves…or hire a social media consultant for our company to make it all happen?
According to author Lon Safko, the purpose of this chapter is to show readers how to use photo sharing web sites to create revenue, and that we should “approach this process from the mind-set of a prospect or customer who is searching the site for you and your product or service.” OK, that part I understand, especially when he continues that ” if only one prospect per quarter sees your photos and becomes a customer, isn’t it worth the free posting?” At the end of the chapter, he helps calm me down a little when he says “don’t get overwhelmed,” even though it was a little too late for that by the time I read that!
The book does a pretty good job of explaining what photo sharing sites are all about, including the history of sites designed for printing of digital pix (we use Walmart’s site and Snapfish quite often for that) and the potential for using manipulation software like PhotoShop and Picasa. However, according to a recent report, with the advent of Google+, Google will drop the brand Picasa, but not the service.
A general question from this chapter: What does Windows Live Messenger have to do with photo sharing?
I do understand Safko’s conclusion that “sharing photos…is the very essence of social media. It’s all about 2-way communication. Upload your photos, create communities and start building credibility and trust with your clients and prospects.” I just think it’s a little harder to do than he makes it sound in this chapter.
Madsen Media 
Sorry about that! I thought I explained in in other chapter and I didn’t want to go over it again… I am happy I calmed you in the end. :o)
I agree with you Dave. Meta tagging I think gets at the entire keyword thing. If you tag your photos then they are search-optimized? Perhaps Flickr World Map and Google Earth were new/popular when Safko was writing the book. I think the points I took away were to make sure you’re posting links/icons to Flickr from your website so that people can click on it to share photos of themselves or to download free photos that you’re sharing with them. I guess the way I look at this entire thing is through the eyes of Husker football. So giving fans a quick way to share their fan photos helps us build a relationship with them — as well, they should have a quick, easy and free way to get photos of the stadium, players, gameday experience that we can give them copyright free. Right? As long as they’re not making money on them (make them accept terms before downloading), why not have cool stadium images as their wallpaper or to print on a t-shirt? So in that sense, I agree with him and his last quote. Still, I agree with you… it’s a lot more complicated!