7 Ways to Make Money on Flickr (+ Bonus Tips)

I love Flickr. It’s not perfect. In fact, I have a long wish list when it comes to this service - including better protection for photographers and artists. But, in spite of its shortcomings, I’ve been a loyal customer since 2004 - long before it was acquired by Yahoo (and paying for a Pro account every year since ‘06).

And, while there are no direct ways to make money online with Flickr, there are ways you can use the site to help you in your business/career. Here are some ideas:

1) Take a photo of a product and put a link to your affiliate link via notes function. To see a sample of this idea in action, click on the photo of books on the right hand side. You will then be taken to the image’s Flickr page. Once you’re there, put your cursor over the books and you’ll see notes with affiliate links to Amazon.

2) Make your picture available as stock photo and put a link to your sales or downloads page. If you use a service like Tradebit, for example, you can mention in your photo description that a higher resolution/non-watermarked version of your photo is available for download.

3) If you sell on eBay, Etsy, or your own shop, you can take a photo of your product and put a link to your store front. Many Flickr crafters tend to use this approach. Flickr then helps to introduce your products to people. One example is artist and designer Elsie Flannagan: when she has a new piece available for sale, she uploads an image like this and mentions that it’s available as a print or original in her Etsy shop. Another example is Mahar Dry Goods, run by Robert Mahar who tend to upload new product photos on Flickr, and his profile reflects the fact that he is the owner of craft gift shop for kids (with a link to shop front).

4) Build your portfolio and market your service/business. Even if you don’t have products to sell, but you have a service to offer, you can use Flickr as one of your online portfolios. This especially useful for artists, photographers, illustrators and designers. Many folks have claimed to have gained new clients based on their Flickr account. One such person is author/illustrator Debbie Ohi. You can see that her profile reflects the nature of her work and that she accepts commissions.

5) When you use a photo on your blog that you uploaded on Flickr, add a link to your blog post or portfolio site. If your blog runs ads, product sales and/or affiliates, then you might get new customers too.

6) Sell them as prints. You can either use a third party service for creating high quality prints, or you can do the printing yourself if you have the equipment and knowledge to do so. Mention that your photos are available as prints in the description and/or your profile.

7) Create products off your photography. Flickr, for example, has a partnership with Qoop, where various products like mugs, keychains and photobooks may be created based on your Flickr photos. You can create them there and resell those products. Another option is making your own image-based products available on Cafepress. Again, you can mention the availability of these products in the description and/or your profile.

Some Bonus Tips:

1. Make sure you upload a good quality image. Otherwise, it will not encourage people to buy your products or use your services.

2. Adding good titles and descriptions are always helpful.

3. Don’t forget to add tags! Tagging helps to get your images to show in relevant searches.

4. Never ever oversell. Flickr users will know if you’re just using the service to peddle your products/services. Don’t plaster “for sale” signs.

5. Join groups and participate in them. Send some of your good images to these groups (within the group rules). Communities help!

6. Add friends and leave comments. Being an active participant is a good thing.

7. Promote your Flickr photos on your blog, your email signature, and anywhere else you can think of.

8. There are 2 versions of Flickr - a Free and Pro version. With the Free one, you have limited number of uploads in a month, plus a few other restrictions. But, it’s still worth using. The Pro version has unlimited uploads and a few other perks - like getting your photos organised in several sets and collections.
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How Wll I Be Paid If My Photographs Are Sold?

For each photograph sold you will be paid a commission. This commission is transferred to you in credits on your personal Fotolia account. To consult the state of your profits, you can consult the menu My Credits on the member home page.

The credits which you obtained from commissions can be converted directly into money or can be used as credits on the Fotolia site.
This conversion is carried out by transferring credits to a Paypal account or MoneyBookers account.

Paypal and Moneybookers are services that allow a person to collect profits from many sites and to transfer for free or with a very low fee to a personal account. A Paypal account also enables you to use the money gained on 45000 other sites that accept Paypal transactions. Moneybooker is available in many countries not always covered by paypal

The conversion of your credits is done instantly by clicking the "Convert your credits" button on the My Credits menu. There is minimum eligible of two credits to be able to process the transfer. Fotolia charges no fee for transfer over 50 credits. A low fee of 1 credit is charged for transfer less than 50 credits.Source

What type of images does Fotolia need?

Photographers ask us everyday what kind of stock photography are we looking for. While Fotolia does not specialize in any specific subject we are seeking high quality marketable stock photography.

Stock photography covers so many subjects, cultures, issues, concepts, and ideas. In addition stock photography is always changing. What was hot last year may not be hot this year.

Stock photography is essentially a catalog of photos that a potential buyer may search to find just the right image for their marketing brochure, multimedia presentation, website, billboard or other project. These buyers are often graphic designers, graphic artists, marketing professionals, ad agencies, and in some cases private consumers.

If you are submitting images that are easily obtained and similar to other photos on the website you have a good chance at being lost in the crowd.To help you increase your visibility and sales we have a few suggestions:

Technical Perfection
To get the attention your images deserve all photos submitted to Fotolia must be of the highest technical quality. This means all your photos must be properly exposed, in focus, sharp, free from noise dust and other artifacts. Photos with natural contrast and bright colors usually sell and print well for customers. Photos that are not technically perfect will be rejected from the database.

Technical Guidelines

• Minimum of 1600 x 1200 pixels for web use
  
• 2272 x 1704 pixels or greater for print use
  
• files with atleast 2000 x 3000 pixels
  
• Do not interpolate or upsize your images!
  
• All files should be 8 bit RGB Jpeg files with minimal compression
  
• Try to shoot in RAW format and then covert to Jpeg before submission to Fotolia.
  
• Little to no sharpening
  
• Images with sRGB color profiles are preferred
  

Capture a Theme
Choose a subject, situation, activity or trade that interests you and try to illustrate that idea through your photography. You can get ideas from our Representative Category section for themes and concepts like business, travel, technology.

Depict a Conceptual Idea
Create images that illustrate an abstract idea, concept or emotion
A very popular trend is for photographers to illustrate a more abstract idea such as ethics, honesty, lifestyle, the idea of pleasure, sadness, emotions, creativity, intelligence, ect. All of these more abstract ideas may be found under our Conceptual Categories.

Popular subjects and trends

• Health and medical field – pictures of nurses, doctors, surgeons, ER, operating room, medical equipment, medications, situations, wellness, physicals, check ups, technology, X-rays, shots, pharmacy, insurance, labs,
• Business related photos – people conducting business, business environment, equipment, style, design, symbols, attributes ect.
• People in activities – Pictures of people doing something like dancing, working, playing sports, laughing, eating, driving, building, are very popular.
• Controversial issues – general politics, women, gender, sexuality, crime, religion, education, family, war, race, environment, poverty, wealth. These photos should be captured in good taste portraying the subjects without.
• Religious faith – symbols, activities, locations, actions, traditions, and food.
• Technology photos – lasers, fiber optics, equipment, digital chips, clean rooms,
  
• Different occupations – Delivery person, florist, dentist, doctor, nurse, construction worker, plumber, electrician, machinist, pilot, photographer, teacher, banker, salesman, receptionist, policeman, judge,
  
• Objects – everyday or strange objects depicting an idea or symbolic of an activity. Objects like sun glasses, keys, money, sticky notes, baseball, or engine piston. These items should be captured on plain white or black seamless backgrounds.
  
• Close up shots – macro or close up shots of objects or people.
  
• Under water photos – photos of underwater sea creatures, ocean topography, scuba diving, snorkeling, mermaids and sea monsters (if you find any),
  

Identify Customer Needs
Fotolia has put together some tools that help photographers understand what customers are currently buying from Fotolia.

Unpopular Subjects
Fotolia receives thousands of images per day. While most are very good we would like to discourage members from sending in photos with low market value.

• Do not submit fine art images
  Not all great photos are good for Fotolia. We have seen some photographers submit images that are a little too artistic for stock photography. While they are wonderful fine art images they will not sell well to our customers. We prefer to receive photos that illustrate a concept or capture a situation as discussed above. We are unfortunately obliged to decline even awesome artistic photos if submitted.
• Unwanted Photos
  Fotolia is not interested in pictures of the family pet including dogs, cats, ducks, insects ect. In addition pictures of flowers, sunsets, and nature are not needed as well. We are overwhelmed with such pictures already and have no need for more mediocre photos of such subjects.
  

If you will follow these basic tips you are sure to gain a lot of attention and make a lot of money.

How To Make Money Selling Photos?

You can work from home selling your photos. Fotolia provides a free website where you can upload your photos and sell them online 24/7 around the world easily. Join the other photographers now ....

This question has probably lead most photographers to join Fotolia as they want to sell royalty free stock images online and make money selling photos.

This article is intended to make you think about how you can make more money from selling your photos through Fotolia – and other ways to make money from photography at Fotolia.

Make More Money With Your Photos
Making money selling your photos online starts before you pick up the camera. Look at what sells well.

Fotolia helps you find out what photos sell well. If you are going to spend the day taking photos for money, then if you are shooting things that don’t sell you aren’t making the most of your time.

What are Buyers Searching For?

By clicking on the tags link at the bottom of the Fotolia screen, you will see the top search terms - what searchers are looking for; searchers are buyers, so you can see the importance of this! The larger the search tag appears, the more popular that search term.

The larger the word, the more times it has been searched for. Look at the largest dozen – click on them. What images does the buyer see? Can you do better?

Think Ahead – Is Xmas Coming or Have You Missed It?
Think about who buys photos. A lot of stock images are used in advertising and promotions. Marketing departments and advertising agencies will already be looking forward to their Xmas offers. Larger companies will have already have finished their Xmas advertising campaign and will now be at the stage where they are arranging their materials distribution channels – and you can see this in the tags as the word “Christmas” starts to get large during August! It’s still there now. It is unlikely anybody will be wanting to buy Christmas images in December, so think ahead to “the next big thing” and get your images in early. When will Valentine’s images be wanted? What about Easter?

Missed the Slot?
Perhaps you think you’ve missed the opportunity with seasonal items, but upload them anyway. They will be there for the next rush, ensuring you don’t miss out next time.
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40 Ways to Make Money on the Internet

I did a little bookmark scrub this morning and thought I would share the remaining content of my "Online Money" folder. To warn you, there are certain things that I don't like and never bookmark so:

What's NOT included: Taking Paid Surveys, Getting Paid to Surf the Internet, MLM, Contest Sites, "Buy my DVD, CD, Audiobook", etc.

What IS included: Things you can use to legitimately make money online - Everything from Getting Paid to review software to good ole' Adsense.

Anyway, here you go.

* Adbrite - Sell space on your site for text ads

* Amazon Affiliate Program - Easily create a store or shopping section on your site instead of sending your visitors to Amazon. Amazon handles the shopping cart and fulfillment.

* Amazon Seller - Sell your stuff on Amazon

* Associated Content - If you write a story, how-to, rant, etc. you can submit it to them and they will pay you $3-$20 per article if they like it

* Azoogleads - Another ad program. They do have some decent companies lined up as advertisers. You provide space, they'll provide an ad.

* BidVertiser - PPC (pay per click) program with a low $10 payout amount.

* Build a Niche Store - This is a simple store / website development platform which enables you to create content based sites that generate income through the eBay affiliate programs. Pretty darn simple.

* Blog - Start a blog and consistently write excellent content. With good ad placement, you may make some money. I detail my process here: Simply Said, How to Blog.

* Business Opportunities Blog - I am adding this because I am a subscriber to their site and I see ideas everyday that could result in making money. A lot of the ideas pertain to online businesses. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, it's a good reference.

* Cafepress - You provide a design, they'll toss it on a T-Shirt, Hat, etc. No upfront costs. Get a free online shop and promote your products on your website.

* Chitika - Their eMiniMalls service has shown great results for many Bloggers and site owners. You choose a keyword and they show relevant products on your site using a pretty unique interface.

* Clickbank - Quickly becoming my favorite affiliate program. They have thousands of things for you to advertise on your site.

* ClicknWork - Get paid $5-$150 per hour for basically doing freelance work on a per-assignment basis. You have to pass a pretty tough test to get in.

* Clicksor - These are the guys that generate contextual ads on sites that show up when you hover over a double-underlined word.

* Commission Junction - If you have a site, you can join Commission Junction. Once enrolled for free, you can choose companies whose ads are pertinent to your site. Companies have the ultimate say on working with you. There are easily over 1,000 companies to choose from here.

* CreamAid - For blogs only, advertisers provide you with a topic and you write about it on your site. To do this, you have to install a flash widget into your blog post. The more people you bring into the conversation through the widget, the more you get paid. It's difficult to explain.

* eefoof - Think of it as YouTube + Flickr + Music. You add original content and they pay you based on the visitors you attract.

* Ether - If you are an expert on something, Ether provides a way for people to pay you to talk about it in a one-on-one setting. If you want to charge $250/hr, that's fine. You have to do all the advertising so you should have a blog or site already established.

* eBay- Come on, you know what this is. Gather your junk and sell it!

* eBay Stores - If you have a real store and want to sell your stuff online, this is a decent option to get you started.

* ELance - Name gives it away. Programmers, Codes, Web Designers, Writers, Editors, can look for freelance opportunities.

* Feedvertising - This is an arm of Text Link Ads and is currently only good for Wordpress 2.0 Users. This does me no good currently, but as you can guess, they place ads in your feed(s).

* Feedburner / Google - Not only are they the best place to house your feeds, they will also add ads to your feed and website. You get paid per impression and if you implement Google Adsense to your feed, you are paid per click.

* Google Adsense - Come on, you don't need an explanation; these ads are all over the place. Google displays relevant ads based on your site's content

* Google Adwords - Create simple text ads and choose keywords that determine when they are displayed. This is where the Adsense Content comes from. You do not need a site for this.

* H3.com - Get paid to fill jobs. Commissions range from $50-$5,000. It all depends on how tough the job is to fill and how desperate the hiring company is. This is another one that's tough to explain.

* Indeed.com - Add their job board to your site. They then post jobs based on the geographic location of visitors and the position types you pre-select. I tried it and I they continually report that I sent 0 visitors and I know that's not right. Nevertheless, I may have an isolated problem so they make the list.

* InnerSell - If you have a customer that wants to buy something you cannot sell, you can sell the lead here.

* Jellyfish - This is a shopping site that pays you a percentage of the purchases made by people you refer. They are not part of a wider affiliate program so you do it direct.

* Jigsaw - It's a pretty flaky model but if you have a Rolodex full of good contacts, you can sell them here. I can't make sense of it but it looks like you get $0.10 per profile.

* KarmaOne - They are basically a recruiting website. If you fill one of their jobs by finding a good candidate, you'll get paid anywhere from $50-$12,000. It all depends on how desperate the hiring company is.

* LinkShare.com - If you have a site, you can join Linkshare. Once enrolled for free, you can choose companies whose ads are pertinent to your site. Companies have the ultimate say on working with you. Like Commission Junction, there are a ton of companies waiting to evaluate your site.

* Microsoft Adcenter - Bid on keywords and Microsoft places your created ads then they are searched for. This is similar to Google Adwords. You do not need a site for this.

* Overstock.com - Sell your stuff on Overstock.com

* Pageflakes - This is a company that developed a user-defined Ajax homepage to show feeds, flickr photos, and a ton of other things. Think of it as a replacement for your Google Homepage. Anyway - they'll pay you $1 per referral that you send over. They are not part of a wider affiliate program so you do it direct. This one is pretty simple.

* Pay Per Post - I don't agree with this model entirely but they have advertisers that will pay you to write about their products on your blog.

* Pheedo - If you have an RSS feed, run it through Pheedo. Like Feedburner, they can include ads into your feed and if you really become large, advertisers will pay a premium for you to show their ads.

* Shareasale.com - I've never really worked with them but I do have an account. They are similar to Commission Junction and Linkshare however they seem to have lower tiered companies with advertising offers.

* Shoemoney - This is a blog that can teach you a ton on making money online. I've spent hours reading his old stuff.

* Software Judge - They will pay you up to $50 to review software.

* Text Link Ads - I have never made a dime here but I know people that have. You can earn by sending advertisers to them or by selling spots on your site. You must have a real site or blog to do this - nothing on a shared domain (i.e. /blogspot).

* Vibrant Media - Don't bother unless your site has 500,000 page views of text based content a month. If you have that readership, these are the guys that display bubble box ads to underlined words on your site.

* West Work At Home Agent - Not entirely online but this is worth a mention because it's won awards and is very legitimate. If you are an at-home Mom or free-lancer without work, you should check this out.

* Yahoo! Merchant Solutions - This is a pretty simple and cheap way to create an online store.
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