Active in Forums - Increased DL?

[steppysteph]

I was wondering if anyone believes in the theory that if you are active in istock forums, you will have increased sales. I actually noticed that this is somewhat true when I started chatting in forums... but recently I stopped and downloads were also down. Of course I don't believe that it's 100% true, but still, i will chat more in forums in hopes that this actually works =)

[jsnover]

Talk away. I think when you're very new and have very few sales you might see an extra one or two just because someone happened to check out your portfolio, but that's not really significant once your sales volume goes up.

There's no magic to this; just build your portfolio, keyword it well, perhaps make lightboxes to link similar images in your portfolio (I'm never sure how much of a difference this makes, but it's easy enough to do).

[rjmiz]

It's also true and a proven fact:
If you stand on one leg while you rub your stomach with one hand, and pat your head with the other, while reciting "Mary had a little lamb"
you will increase your chances of downloads for the day by 63% on iStock.

This I know to be true.

Cranky MIZ
The voice of reason

[lathspell]

I was wondering if anyone believes in the theory that if you are active in istock forums, you will have increased sales.

I strongly believe in the theory that investing 2 hours in shooting some good photos brings a lot more than investing 2 hours in posting to the forums.

Additionally you could also upload the photos from these 2 hours to other stock sites (as as you are not an IS exclusive of course) which might bring even more royalties since the DLs on other sites do not depend on postings in istockphoto's forums.

[michealo]

I was wondering if anyone believes in the theory that if you are active in istock forums, you will have increased sales.

I strongly believe in the theory that investing 2 hours in shooting some good photos brings a lot more than investing 2 hours in posting to the forums.

Additionally you could also upload the photos from these 2 hours to other stock sites (as as you are not an IS exclusive of course) which might bring even more royalties since the DLs on other sites do not depend on postings in istockphoto's forums.

well said

[tan510jomast]

i have to agree that being active in the IS forum does nothing for dl, other than get lots of views from other contributors out of curiousity than anything .
the time (wasted) could be better spent shooting and uploading to other sites, especially when IS is snail-slow with reviewing images.
i already have sales with images still pending review with IS.
perharps as a newbie, we're not in the pecking priority.

so yes, most definitely, better to manage time more efficiently with ul to other sites than simply concentrating on IS forum or IS alone.
IS pays pretty measly too, which isn't much of an incentive either.

[steppysteph]

Haha I won't spend two hours of my time posting in IS forums or any other forums for that matter. I do it when I have nothing to do in the office and the boss is not looking over my shoulder. I do the forum thing if I have to sit in the office till 6p.m. with nothing to do. Just to kill time =)

[MikLav]

it is very visible in Dreamstime statistics - my forum activity doesn't improve downloads; but my growing portfolio does. I believe iStock is the same.

[epixx]

It's also true and a proven fact:
If you stand on one leg while you rub your stomach with one hand, and pat your head with the other, while reciting "Mary had a little lamb"
you will increase your chances of downloads for the day by 63% on iStock.

This I know to be true.

Cranky MIZ
The voice of reason

I've heard that too, but only if you wear a pink hat   

[tan510jomast]

It's also true and a proven fact:
If you stand on one leg while you rub your stomach with one hand, and pat your head with the other, while reciting "Mary had a little lamb"
you will increase your chances of downloads for the day by 63% on iStock.

This I know to be true.

Cranky MIZ
The voice of reason

I've heard that too, but only if you wear a pink hat   

and sing and whistle at the same time "always look on bright side of life!"

[Graffoto]

It's also true and a proven fact:
If you stand on one leg while you rub your stomach with one hand, and pat your head with the other, while reciting "Mary had a little lamb"
you will increase your chances of downloads for the day by 63% on iStock.

This I know to be true.

Cranky MIZ
The voice of reason

If I was talented enough to do that, I probably wouldn't bother trying to make $$ on microstock 
I could at the very least get a spot on the gong show (I hear its coming back).

[Clivia]

It's also true and a proven fact:
If you stand on one leg while you rub your stomach with one hand, and pat your head with the other, while reciting "Mary had a little lamb"
you will increase your chances of downloads for the day by 63% on iStock.

This I know to be true.

Cranky MIZ
The voice of reason

I tried the effectiveness of reciting 'Baa Baa Black sheep' and also 'Ring a ring of Roses'. neither gave results as beneficial to my pocket as 'Mary had as little lamb'. My actual increase over the day was 0.111%. Thanks Miz.

[bigmac]

   Man, I am sooooo glad to read this thread.  I have been reading loads of stuff too about forum activity, creative networks etc. making a difference to downloads.  Having made alot of sacrifices and worked my butt off to go on field trips, improve my techinical ability, build my portfolio, suffer the pain of rejections, edit keywords and titles, create links etc. etc. I was absolutely gutted to read that the files that have disappeared into the ether were perhaps not downloaded because I didn't spend enough time chatting in forums (hard to take when you spent most of your schooldays being told to stop talking and get on with your work  ).  Seriously, after last weeks nonesense from Mr Klein, this pulled my motivation to rock bottom.   This morning I was beginning to wonder if I'd been duped into thinking I was contributing to a photo agency when in fact it was a social networking site.  I felt 12 years old.  Now I know that my lack of downloads is just because my photos are crap!  And I'm absolutely delighted!  At least that's something I'll be happy to work on......