Update On 500px Letter by The Narratographer

Update On 500px Letter by The Narratographer

I have just received an email from 500px, stating that my message has been forwarded onto the correct person and that they have a few updates on how my points are being taken into consideration :). Recently, I have been writing a lot about the disparity between certain peoples work on 500px and the majority of photographers. It seems that so many people struggle to ever get a foothold on the site and do not get the recognition they deserve. This is not due to the quality of their images as most of these people are great photographers, taking superb images that deserve much more visibility than they receive. Personally, my 500px journey started some 3 years ago and whilst it was slow running at the start, I was lucky enough to fluke a 99.8 image in my first few uploads which enabled me to get a rather large following rather quickly. Without this, I doubt I would ever established myself on this site and I may have even quit. However, not everyone is so lucky and I thought it would be a good idea to share with people some very basic tricks on how you can maximise your visibility, as I do. None of them are playing the system or ‘cheating’, they are simply the things I have learned for how to maximise your images visibility. 1. Post only once a day. The more often you post, the less people will want to look. I never post more than once a day.
2. Upload different styles of images. If you have 10 photos of a certain place or person, don’t upload them one after the other. Intersperse with differing styles, locations etc.
3. Tag your images. This enables people to find them. You get 30 tags, use as many as you can. Tag them with things that apply, but don’t limit yourself to the standard ones. Try tags such as #beautiful #view #place #person #compositon
4. Crop them correctly for the thumbnail. You want the cropped version (the one everyone sees) to be a strong composition.
5. Upload at a time when most of your followers are likely to be on their phones. So if most of your followers are in the US, then try uploading at the times when those people will be travelling to and from work. This is the time when most are bored and scrolling through 500px.
6. Always geo-tag your images, so that people know where they were taken. It gives people the chance to look at images from that location en-masse.
7. Write something. No one appreciates an image as much as they appreciate an image with a short story. Tell people the background to the image. If it is a photo of a dog, tell us about the dog. Tell us why you took the photo, what you were thinking or feeling. Give us an insight into your world, your life.
8. Like, follow and comment on other peoples work. The more you engage, the more others will engage with you. Focus more on other photographers trying to establish themselves. So many people waste a lot of time commenting on the work of people who will not/do not do the same for you. The more popular the photographer, the less time that person will have to respond to the comments they receive.
9. Post your image into groups and galleries. Give people every chance to see it.
10. If your last image was predominately red, then make your next one an image with a different colour. No one wants to look at someones profile and see a bunch of images that do not stand out from each other. Variety is key.
11. Fill out your profile. Tell us who you are and why you took up this annoying hobby.
12. Never bulk upload. This is not Flickr :). Upload your best work, once per day (so important that I mentioned it twice :)).

The Narratographer: Photos