One of the most effective categories of the new Web 2.0 for the entire hospitality industry is Photo Sharing. Photo sharing is a term given to a category of website that provides means to post a collection of digital photos online. These sites allow users to organize and share photos, often in a “photoblog” format, with journal entries for each photo.
Good photo sharing sites generally allow users to categorize and organize images, provide keyword tags, deliver images in various sizes, perform basic image manipulation, and share images on their websites or blogs.
Why should you consider sharing photos?
Millions use photo sharing sites. Search to see if there are already photos of your area or property, and see what people are posting about your property/business or area.
Photo sharing sites will link to your website with the photos you upload. This will help drive qualified traffic (if your photos are good), as well as provide potential search engine benefits.
Photo sharing sites are a convenient place to share photos and allow you to create slideshows to place on your website.
Photo sharing sites are a powerful and convenient way to manage your own photo library; Photos can even be made private if you don’t want the whole world to see them. You can also set up multiple users to allow collaboration.
Most photo sharing sites will print all kinds of collateral (calendars, flyers, posters, prints, stamps, etc.) from your photos. Take advantage of this to help strengthen your brand recognition.
Most photo sharing sites will allow you to create a ‘community’, which provides excellent online marketing and photo sharing opportunities for chambers of commerce, CVBs and tourism associations.
Most photo sharing sites offer easy and intuitive photo editing. This is a good place for people who don’t pre-edit their photos on their computers to modify them after uploading.
How big is the photo sharing market? Depending on which source you trust, there seems to be around 50 million US visitors to the top 10 players each month.
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