Social Media

[Kayaker72]

I was wondering what people thought of different social media? I basically post my photos here and on Flickr. I'll do family pics on Facebook. But I've recently had a few friends encourage me to join Instagram and I've always been curious about 500pix.

Any thoughts? Is it mostly good social interactions or do you get anything else out of it?

[clemmb]

If your in business its all free advertising. I don't have my photography business anymore, but when I did after a wedding I would tag all of the brides maids. All the photos I posted would be seen by all of their friends.
I still use Facebook and Flicker to share my photos to friends.
I have never signed up for 500pix. I used to browse 500pix. Great images there. Mostly heavily doctored. Recently they don't seem to let me browse anymore without signing up.

[neuroanatomist]

Social media = sharing 8-track tapes with friends.

Ok, so I’m not a complete Luddite, I have a Facebook account and even check it occasionally. But pics are posted only to Flickr.

[Jonathan Huyer]

I have a separate Facebook page for my photos: https://www.facebook.com/JonathanHuyer and post to it maybe once a week or so. I use it because it's convenient, and the images appear in news feeds where people are already surfing (as opposed to someone needing to deliberately check out a site to see what might be new). Facebook automatically compresses the image when you upload it, so the quality is not as sharp as I would like. On the plus side, that means it's less likely to be appropriated by others. You get reasonable viewing statistics from the page so you can tell which images have more crowd appeal. I also throw the occasional photo on Instagram, although I'm not sure what the general usefulness of Instagram really is.
One advantage to social media is I can make announcements, such as whether I have a photo on display in a gallery or if I'm doing a presentation somewhere. So like Mark said, it's free advertising.

[Kayaker72]

I might play around by adding an account, but, as I am not really marketing anything, from the sounds of things I am probably in pretty good shape!

Thanks!

[Photog82]

I used to use flickr, a lot, but moved to my website and Facebook. Facebook will butcher your photos due to compression. I'd like to start over with my flickr account and do it right and get back into the friendly photo critiquing, advice, etc. that it used to be about 15 years ago.

Facebook is good for advertising on our portraiture side of the business and mostly post those types of photographs there.

[Manofmayo66]

I have had most of them....and the one I eventually came back to? Flickr.

500px is essentially a beauty contest. Think of those "Am I Hot or Not" Sites. That is 500px.

My Website never got any hits and was a waste of money. In the 5 years I had a site, I maybe got 100,000 hits, and that was mostly from bots and little boys who wanted to see the half naked picture of the chick with big boobs.

Facebook is for my friends and I seldom put anything up on that any more. Even when I had a separate page for my photography, no one seemed to give a rat's ass. So I closed it.

Instagram I am still using for cute photos of my doggie. Random people actually follow me, but no one gives a rat's ass either. If it wasn't for the astrophotography and the half naked women, I would probably drop it too.

And Flickr. I upload monthly for my friends and family to see what I have shot. It is free and occasionally people have something nice to say.

[Busted Knuckles]

I post family pics "privately" on face book, as well as, a couple of site specific pages - birding sites around Central Florida, otherwise Flikr