5 WAYS TO TURN YOUR PHOTOS TO CASH

Instagram & Flickr have made you a popular photographer. So why not take it one step further and make money from

your favourite hobby?

5 Ways To Turn Your Photos Into Cash

1. Make your profile public

2. Use popular hashtags and expand your audience

3. Geotag your photos

4. Keep an eye out for trending themes

5. Make commercially successful photos

MAKE YOUR PROFILE PUBLIC!

Let’s start with profile options. Your account should be public, as it is the key to make photos

available to be licensed through Lobster’s marketplace.

Be sure to check your Instagram status is set to public on the settings page. This will allow

other users to follow you, view (and maybe buy) your photos without your authorisation.

On Flickr, make both your profile and the photos you want to

sell public.

To make photos you’ve uploaded public, use one of two options:

change the privacy level in the Owner settings section under the Privacy

heading, or batch them in Organizr, then click “Permissions” and select

“Who can see, comment, tag?”

USE POPULAR HASHTAGS AND EXPAND YOUR

AUDIENCE!

Hashtags can help you attract many people to your photos.

People often look for photographs of specific places

or events, so describe your photos with detailed hashtags.

Also check the trending tags for the day, this means your photos will show up alongside others on the page for that tag. Tagging your

photos gives them the best opportunity to be discovered and

purchased.

Even if a photo has already been published, you can add more popular

hashtags in the comments (Instagram) or through Add tags

functionality (Flickr). This will help through attracting new likes, follows

and, ultimately sales.

Don’t forget to expand your audience by connecting your

profile to other social networks. Relevant hashtags can also make it easier to find your

account.

The more social networks you connect to your account,

the more you can promote your photos and boost your

following and sales.

GEOTAG YOUR PHOTOS!

Geotagging is one more important action to make your

photos popular. People are always interested in photos from familiar or well known

locations.

They might see your pictures of places they visited or saw

and follow them. This will make your photos potentially

attractive for buyers.

Geotags can help create an extensive database of visual representations of different locations. This may create

new opportunities to attract followers and buyers with affinities

for those specific locations.

Keep an Eye Out for Trending Themes!

To get a better idea of what content works well, there are

tools you can use. First, regularly check what tagged photos are most popular on

social media.

You’ll notice certain trends that you may want to follow to meet demand.

Most of these images share similar attributes in terms of quality: bright

colours, unique angles or an interesting use of contrast. Even a good sense of humour has value.

Adopt these principles and watch out for the trends to make your own original and

creative pictures that can grow to become popular and sell

widely.

MAKE COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL PHOTOS!

Statistics indicate that the most popular Instagram photos are

lifestyle oriented: cool cars, beautiful homes and other attributes of the so-called

“good life.”

The biggest demand category for stock

libraries are real-life scenes of people in their

natural surroundings.

Stock libraries also need conceptual images that

show ideas such as wealth, fear, health, success, anxiety,

heartache, joy or surprise.

Many of the best-selling images show people at work. Some of our top sellers

include: vacation images, leisure and luxury concepts, food shots, and seasonal

themes. The Christmas and New Year holiday season is practically a category of

its own.

Tips for Selling Images on Lobster

• regularly check most popular photo tags on Lobster.

• Whenever it comes across your mind that a certain photo can be sold, add #ilobsterit tag to instantly stream it into Lobster and make it visible to all the buyers out there.

• You’ll notice certain trends that you may follow to meet the demand on Lobster.

• And don’t forget to expand your audience by connecting your profile to other social networks.

• Make sure your photos are public.