Most small businesses haven't figured out how to promote themselves on Flickr—and that means you can get an edge on the competition. And in a recent post at the Influential Marketing Blog, Rohit Bhargava offers several useful how-to pointers.

Consider the following:

• It all starts with high-quality, non-marketing photography. You don't have to hire a professional photographer, as you would when shooting images for your website or ads. "Flickr works best when you share more authentic 'real life' photos," he notes. "To take great ones, you may want to upgrade your point and shoot to a real Digital SLR camera with a high quality lens."
• Then you've got to go pro. A free account, he argues, will allow you to upload 200 images—but it's easy to hit that limit and you'll have less credibility in the community. "If you are going to use Flickr to do any marketing," he says, "put up the 25 bucks and get yourself a pro account."
• And quickly approve requests for reuse. "Lots of services, bloggers and media are now using Flickr images to power their own stories and media," he says. The more they use and credit your images, the more exposure your company receives.

The Po!nt: Use Flickr the right way and you'll gain a competitive advantage on small businesses that do not.

Source: Influential Marketing Blog. Click here for the full post.

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