Re: FLICKR: Anyone using it? Problems?
Funny that you ask about Flickr. Actually, Flickr has been one of my new, out of the box projects for traffic this Spring. (OK, yes, maybe I am about 5 years too late, but better late than never)
Actually, Flickr can be a good traffic / social network / promotion tool - but like any other social network it only pays off if you take the time and trouble to learn the rules and participate in the society.
Flickr is a photo sharing website for people. It’s not a porn platform. That means if you are going to post photos - make them yours, and present them like you were presenting them to your friends if you were having a dinner party, and you decided to dust off the ol’ photo album. Despite these restrictions, I think there is a lot of latitude as long as you use your brain and be creative.
Another thing, I decided quickly to not post photos on Flickr showing the guys’ naughty bits. If your photos are classed as restricted, then they will only appear in searches to people logged into Flickr with Flickr user accounts. This defeats the whole purpose right? The goal is to appear in relevant search results. So when I show guys, it’s per Flickr’s rules for “anyone can see this photo.”
Flickr is a social network. So, find like minded users are add them to your contacts lists. Favorite some stuff, leave comments on other people photos.
I’ve posted some photos and in a few weeks, the images have racked up decent amount of views. For example - here’s a photo I posted which after I tweeted, Roman Heart graciously retweeted. And now if you go to Flickr, and search for “Roman Heart” my photo appears first. I can say the same for other porn stars such as Rafael Alencar, etc. Note that I’m being strategic here and not just throwing everything to the wall and seeing what sticks.
I’m very careful to use Flickr’s tagging system correctly (most people don’t). You can put url’s into your comments which is great. People do click on them (although they get a rel=nofollow appended) I also go ahead and geo-locate wherever the photo was taken on a the map too. More metadata is always good thing.
A next step in this project will be to figure out how to push my Flickr photostream into prominent positions in the search engines.
Like with my Twitter account - or even for my GayDemon account - I make it a point to project a personality and be a human, not a bot.
Feel free to add friskyfans as a contact. Oh, and I have some other “out of the box” ideas brewing for the Summer as well… 
Anyone else?
Steve