Social Photography, A New Trend

    Social photography is a fascinating topic for me. Although I am not a professional photographer and I don’t have an advanced SLR, I still exert tremendous enthusiasm towards photography, which is an ideal way to record our lives and detain the recollection.

    This week, I had a one-day-refreshment in Point Reyes National Seashore on Friday to refresh myself and I took some really wonderful photos for this one-day trip. Point Reyes is absolutely a natural sanctuary, a human haven. From its thunderous ocean breakers crashing against rocky headlands and expansive sand beaches to its open grasslands, brushy hillsides, and forested ridges, Point Reyes satisfied my desire of coming back to nature.

 On our way to the Point Reyes. I love the Windmills!

We saw a lot of elephant seal here！

This is my favorite shoot! Imagine you sitting on this lonely chair, facing the ocean and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

I was exhausted when I covered all these steps. But the scenery from the beacon is so wonderful!

My friend took this picture.

    With the prosperity of social media, photography is not only a way for individual recording, but also an efficient way for corporation to promote and brand. Thanks to social media, individuals and companies are conspicuously sharing stories and imageries about themselves every day. Among various functions, photo posting and photo sharing dominate the social media activities. Even on Facebook, the king of networks, people spend 17 percent of their time perusing photos according to a recent study. 

    So a lot of image hosting and video hosting online community  were created such as Flickr, Instagram and Pinterest. We cannot deny the role social photography played on social network sites. For individual, this is one of the most efficient, vivid and attractive way to share stories and catch eyes. For companies and brands, photos are the perfect social media marketing tool for them to stand out.

    I started a Flickr account these days and I found this is a great platform for me to post my own photos and share wonderful pictures from others. I particularly love the “explore” function, through which I can find some really awesome pictures according to my own interest and need. Under some featured “Sets”, stories are told, themes are developed, and junk is collected. There are also loads of groups on Flickr, full to the brim with wonderful things. Also I discovered that many companies are using Flicker to post photos and interact with their customers. Obviously, companies didn’t overlook the visual component of social media.

    Companies can use Flickr for listening: It’s possible to use Flickr as a monitoring tool to see what people are saying about your company. Search for a company or product name to find photos uploaded, you may find people praising it or you may find people uploading images of that company. This is a good way for a company to listening. Also, they should be sure to act appropriately on Flickr because people are talking about you!
    Companies can also use Flickr for talking: Flickr is an ideal tool to extend business brand. Tagging and geolocating images will help people find that company more easily and there are many groups a company can join to share their best shoots and discuss the theme of the group. In Flickr, branding business by itself doesn’t add extra costs; it requires consistent presentation.

     Companies can also use Flickr for energizing: Images provide a high percentage of incoming traffic to many sites, so if a company can energize their most enthusiastic costumers to post photos for them regularly, that will help increase the chances of attracting more visitors to their photos and their homepage. Give photos titles, descriptions and tags is a good way to energize enthusiastic costumers.

    




In a word, social photography is changing the way brands tell stories. Social photography networks featuring photo sharing, interactive forums, personalized profiles, and free endless photo storage are new places where individuals and companies can share their knowledge and learn from others and this will become a new trend for social media!