MicrostockGroup

Agency Based Discussion => 123RF => Topic started by: Peter on August 20, 2008, 02:52

Title: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: Peter on August 20, 2008, 02:52

I am on 123rf about 6 months, but I just discovered Donate option few days ago:

http://submit.123rf.com/submit/donatephoto.php

Do you donate your photos for free download? Does it help regular sales?

I picked 20 of my (low quality) photos for donation 30 days. In the first days 80% of them were downloaded few times.

Does it really helps in normal sales?

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: stokfoto on August 20, 2008, 03:29

I gave it a go but it didn't work for me.I am not sure in what way it could help?So I gave up.

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: Nemo1024 on August 20, 2008, 03:30

I donated several photos, and they got some downloads, while one photo was grabbed 43 times. I did not notice any influence on my regular sales, though. Even the file, which got grabbed 43 time did not sell a single copy!

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: Kngkyle on August 20, 2008, 03:54

I did a few. Didn't see any results. Won't do it again.  ;)

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: rene on August 20, 2008, 04:47

I did it once. 132 dls without any positive results. 132 gifts. I'll not do it again.

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: DanP68 on August 20, 2008, 05:10

Exactly.  Never give away your work, and forget the untruths about increased portfolio exposure.

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: takestock on August 20, 2008, 05:54

I think I have once but I haven't seen any benefit.

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: Jack Schiffer on August 20, 2008, 06:42

 Did once never again doesn't work  ;D

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: RT on August 20, 2008, 07:39

Tried it a while ago on a couple of images, and like everyone else I had no increase in sales.

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: MikLav on August 20, 2008, 09:24

I tried it several times with different images, but didn't see any impact on sales

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: jsnover on August 20, 2008, 11:29

I never donated at 123rf, but did at CanStock, BigStock and DT (when they had a free image program). I never saw any sales bump and only saw it as a way to say "thanks" or to try and help out a site that was looking to boost traffic overall (i.e. not to my portfolio in particular).

The last time I donated was at BigStock and they'd put one of my Christmas images on the front page - which sent sales for that way, way up. I said "thanks" with a different Christmas image as a freebie.

All that talk about increasing portfolio exposure must have included the loads of the free image page - which isn't want you want the increase on.

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: jsolie on August 20, 2008, 16:56

I've donated a few, and I might have gotten a couple of sales because of it.  Currently I have no images donated because the last go-round had zero impact on sales.

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: Phil on August 20, 2008, 17:43

there have been a couple of people say they notice an increase (in older threads) personally I've tried 3 times with a range of images from low to high quality / sales and haven't seen any difference in sales. to me 3 strikes, its out.

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: lisafx on September 02, 2008, 14:31

I started donating a few images a week,  back when the option first became available and I did notice a slight increase in DL's. 

But the last several months donations have yielded no noticeable increase at all.  If you check out the free section you will see why.  Thousands of images in there now.  It's nearly impossible for someone to find mine/yours. 

I still keep donating the same ones periodically, but not really interested in adding any new ones until/unless I see sales pick up. 

I barely squeaked to my second worst month of the year there in August.  Sales are dropping like a rock at 123 despite vigorous uploading. 

Could have been summer, but none of the other sites are showing such a big drop for me. 

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: Smithore on September 03, 2008, 04:13

I've tried too with no bump in sale at all, give up...

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: py on October 01, 2008, 17:38

Donated one of my images on DT yesterday (kk it was a rejected image) and it has got 78 downloads so far.   Not sure if it really helps my sales or portfolio exposure (got an email saying it might help the latter) but got 3 sales which were not resulted from searches ("n/a" for keywords on "My earnings" page)....   ;D

Title: Re: Do you donate your photos?
Post by: melastmohican on October 01, 2008, 18:07

I did. It never helped me in any way.