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Flickr is perhaps the Internet’s most active community of photographers, currently hosting approximately 3.5 billion photos,

which are viewed by over 76 million visitors, monthly.

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One of the best ways to get started with Flickr is to create a Project 365 and join the associated group. Project 365 is basically a photo diary – you take one photo a day and post it on Flickr.

What you post is entirely up to you. But here are some suggestions.

  • Guest Rooms - pictures of your different room ypes, close-ups of furniture items, special amenities, or the view from the room.
  • Pool Area / Workout Facilities – some tantalizing pictures of what’s the guest will experience.
  • Property Grounds – photos of your curb appeal, lush landscaping, etc.
  • If you are a restaurant – your new summer, winter, spring, etc. menu items, desserts, environment, best table, wait staff. 

Now you can also join a Project 365 group on Flickr and share your images with everyone.

But one of the best features of Flickr is geo-tagging.

Geo Tags

When you up load a photo, you have the option of not only adding a descriptive tag (I always recommend including your business name) but also a geo-tag. A geo-tag is a geographical identifying tag that plots the location of your photo. Geo-tagging can help users find a wide variety of location-specific information. More importantly, geo-tags help customers find you through the photos you take.

Four things to remember when posting an image on Flickr.

  1. In the comments section, add a description that includes the name of your hotel and how to contact you
  2. Add word tags that describe your photo (including your hotel name and location)
  3. Geo-tag so that you are search-able via the place pages
  4. Encourage your customers to also take photos to post them on Flickr and tag them (with your hotel name!)

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The 5 most compelling reasons for hotels to use Flickr in your web marketing

  1. Flickr increases your web presence, building awareness among potential guests and travel planners
  2. Flickr can link back to your hotel website, encouraging direct bookings and helping your search engine position
  3. Flickr hosts your images for free
  4. Flickr syndicates your photos across other websites (important in Google’s universal search – which includes media)
  5. Flickr provides the opportunity to build relationships in your online community

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Considering posting a video diary/library of your property renovation, updates or improvements. 

Registering your Hotel Flickr Account

Registration is easy. Since it’s part of the Yahoo network, an existing account there will speed the process.  I recommend you use your hotel name as your Flickr username for search optimization purposes.

Customizing your Flickr Profile

One of the first things you want to do is change the URL of your photos. By default, it will look something like http://flickr.com/photos/96576897@N00345/. That’s not very friendly to search engines or regular people. Change it to include your hotel name or important keywords. You want your permanent URL to be something like http://flickr.com/photos/yourhotel/

The rest of pretty straightforward. You can upload a small image for your hotel’s avatar. You’ll probably want to fill out the “about” section with a brief description of your hotel, and then enter your website URL.

Helpful Tools for Hoteliers Using Flickr

Examples of Hotels on Flickr

Here are a couple more examples of hotels and hospitality companies on Flickr:

Note:  Flickr is not the largest photo sharing site – ImageShack, Facebook, and PhotoBucket all host more photos.

"You must have mindshare before you can have marketshare." - Christopher M. Knight
Copyright © 2010  Robert J. Thompson.  All rights reserved.