Beginner Flickr for the novice

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Name
jason
Edit My Images
Yes
I host my photos on Flickr and really only use it to copy the link to post my photos on here and a couple of other forums. I have a couple of friends who follow me but otherwise I remain unknown.
I see people posting about "the most viewed photo on Flickr" etc and wondering if there is something I am doing wrong. I take photos for my own enjoyment, and also like sharing them for others to enjoy, get ideas, see different places they may not be able to access.
So, what can I get out of Flickr, and what can it give me in return?
Is there a well know post or group on there that people share or join?
I have the Nikon D7200 group as that's what camera I use.
Am I missing out on something? I find myself looking at photos of my local landmarks and landscapes, and that's about it!
 
If you are not careful Flickr can become a full time job. Those who get lots of views and lots of favourites join lots of groups - from all round the world. You follow lots of people and hope they follow you. You like just about every photo you can see. This makes other people like your photos in return.

Some groups exist that allow you to give out badges and awards. Do this and you hope they will reciprocate.

It's a numbers game. How keen are you to play it?

Then there is Flickr Explore. People go berserk to get there photo in there. It's all governed by a Flickr algorithm and they won't say how it works. Some photos in there I wouldn't let anyone see if they were mine so you can't work out how it works.

Unless you are really anal about views and likes I would just use Flickr as you want to. Follow folk you see. Join groups you think are of interest to you. Don't get hung up about it.

There are more important things in life than Flicks stats.
 
You can get out of it what you want really. If you want to play the Flickr numbers game you can plaster an image across hundreds of groups hoping for one or two views per group to up the views. There are plenty of post 1 award 5 groups that give you shiny comments and potentially more views. It’s a numbers game where quality of images doesn’t count for anything (some people used to keyword images with specific key words that had nothing to do with the image but meant it would come up in image searches for those phases-I will let you guess what the searches were!).

Like you my photography is for my own enjoyment. I rarely post in Flickr groups. If I do it’s likely to be something like spring watch or a local group covering an area I photograph. Most people I follow usually do similar genres to myself and they are usually contacts of people I follow rather than strangers i come across if that makes sense. It can be nice meeting someone whilst out and kind of know a little about them because you follow them on flickr.

Best thing I ever did was stopping my ‘pro’ subscription. Without stats I find it’s much better as there is less empthasis on the numbers. Its still nice looking through contacts images from time to time but I rarely leave comments because it doesn’t feel like I can bring myself to actually writing ‘great shot’ or similar time and time again across numerous contacts. I try to leave good comments for a smaller number of contacts or if I do see an image I really like. For critique I feel it’s much better on here, you learn more to help you improve here than on comments or likes on Flickr.
 
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