MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: WarrenPrice on November 12, 2012, 11:03
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http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=125816 (http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=125816)
admin edit: changed the subject so we can find the thread in the future
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Better late than never. It only took them a few years to implement my suggestion. ;D
Regardless, a good feature that was much needed. It will be interesting to see what they came up with.
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I know it's a different thing but... it may easily turn out to be a better option than my own web site on Photoshelter (where sales are non-existent, and I even pay for storage).
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Doesn't work for me, I am one of those getting the reported bugs :(
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The new Display Name and portfolio URL features are currently broken. You can't set them.
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I wish we had that on Getty...
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It's a server load issue - because we are all trying to do the same thing at the same time. They have posted about it in their forums a have implemented some fixes - It worked for me now.
http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=125817&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15 (http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=125817&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15)
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Anyone else want to show how they've chosen galleries? It's not really pimping as there aren't any buyers here, but I'd be happy to comment on other people's choices to make suggestions if others want to do the same.
Here's my gallery set (http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-249/artist-picks). I figured I'd move the order around seasonally, as sales indicate.
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What do they mean by "public" sets - does it mean these images will be offered for free? I am confused by the word "public" - my entire portfolio is publicly accessible on SS, anyone can explain what would be the difference?
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What do they mean by "public" sets - does it mean these images will be offered for free? I am confused by the word "public" - my entire portfolio is publicly accessible on SS, anyone can explain what would be the difference?
Explained here
http://www.shutterstock.com/buzz/introducing-portfolio-pages (http://www.shutterstock.com/buzz/introducing-portfolio-pages)
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What do they mean by "public" sets - does it mean these images will be offered for free? I am confused by the word "public" - my entire portfolio is publicly accessible on SS, anyone can explain what would be the difference?
It's comparable with Istock's lightboxes; you can create various sets of similar photos or illustrations for display on your profile page. It allows customers to easily find images from the same collection, thus increasing sales.
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Ok - thanks! That makes sense.
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It's comparable with Istock's lightboxes; you can create various sets of similar photos or illustrations for display on your profile page. It allows customers to easily find images from the same collection, thus increasing sales.
Too bad (for me, anyway) that they don't allow footage to be added to these. :(
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Too bad they didn't do this years ago when I had relatively few files, instead of now when I have to organize over 7k images if I am going to benefit from this feature...
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Too bad they didn't do this years ago when I had relatively few files, instead of now when I have to organize over 7k images if I am going to benefit from this feature...
It's a lot easier to organize given that you can search in the catalog manager interface and then select everything from that search to add to a set. Give it a try with some top categories (senior couple, gorgeous husband...) to see - even if you only do 10 sets you'll get some boost from a nice portfolio page with galleries. It's tons better in that respect than iStock's interface...
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Lisa, it may take a few seconds to find and sort your 7k images but ... it should be well worth the effort. As Jo Ann pointed out ... the manager does the work for you. Many of your files will be in more that one "set." Just do key word search and move the entire search to the new "set."
Took me some time to figure out how easy that was. The part that is kicking my butt now is how to use social media ... or, is will social media really offer benefit?
@ Jo Ann, are you using social media ... facebook, twitter, etc?
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I really don't want to mix SS up with my personal facebook and I don't have a "business" one that's separate. I do have Linked In and Twitter, but I've never seen any point in using them for business purposes (and I know every business on the planet thinks that this is the hot thing, but I'm not convinced you do anything but piss people off :))
That's a long way of saying "No" :)
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my thoughts too.
Looked at your sets. All I can offer is envy. ;D
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I really don't want to mix SS up with my personal facebook and I don't have a "business" one that's separate. I do have Linked In and Twitter, but I've never seen any point in using them for business purposes (and I know every business on the planet thinks that this is the hot thing, but I'm not convinced you do anything but piss people off :))
That's a long way of saying "No" :)
thank you for saying it, cos I too think you just annoy people. Lately I've been unliking Pages on fb cos I'm just annoyed at how often they post, and the content is drivel. Don't get me started on Twitter! and Pinterest is a dirty word, even though it's fast becoming the ItGirl of social media.
I too have portfolio envy :)
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my thoughts too.
Looked at your sets. All I can offer is envy. ;D
:)
I looked at your sets, and I think my feedback would be to break things down a bit more to avoid too many unrelated images in a group. So in the Travel & Tourism section, for example, you have a ton of pictures of people racing dirt bikes, some vintage cars, some food, some isolated flowers, etc. Even if you had to travel to get the bluebonnet pictures, I don't think I expect to see isolated flowers in that section.
I'm trying to decide if I should set a maximum on how many images I put in a set. The thinking is that if it gets too big, no one's going to look at the last pages, so we're better off to keep it to one or two.
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I see what you mean. My port (key wording) needs some work. Any time I used a state for keyword ... it also got to be travel/tourism.
I need to fix that before I get 7 thousand images. :P
I'm hoping this will give buyers a better tool to find me with ... without getting pissed off about "unintended" spam. :-[
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I really don't want to mix SS up with my personal facebook and I don't have a "business" one that's separate. I do have Linked In and Twitter, but I've never seen any point in using them for business purposes (and I know every business on the planet thinks that this is the hot thing, but I'm not convinced you do anything but piss people off :))
That's a long way of saying "No" :)
So true. I hope SS aren't falling into the trap of over-complicating their product like IS have done so absurdly. The KISS principle has worked very well for SS so far.
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So true. I hope SS aren't falling into the trap of over-complicating their product like IS have done so absurdly. The KISS principle has worked very well for SS so far.
I'm just happy I can finally put a link to my website. I'm sure that has cost me some money over the years in lost freelance work. It's shocking that it took them this long to implement that.
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I'm just happy I can finally put a link to my website. I'm sure that has cost me some money over the years in lost freelance work. It's shocking that it took them this long to implement that.
Not really. Their job as your agent was to sell your work via their own portal rather than promote your own which excludes them.
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I'm just happy I can finally put a link to my website. I'm sure that has cost me some money over the years in lost freelance work. It's shocking that it took them this long to implement that.
Not really. Their job as your agent was to sell your work via their own portal rather than promote your own which excludes them.
Their job is to make money for themselves. I'm just a not-so-necessary evil. ;D
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This is great. I know exacly what to do because my own website front page is created exacly the same way. I have a gallery just for girls holding signs, one just holding shopping bags, one just for business people ect..
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little bit time consuming, but made a start on it anyway - http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-580903/artist-picks (http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-580903/artist-picks)
Not being one to get into social networking, I'm not sure how useful this will prove to be. But still, I am so glad to see SS implementing new features, making old ones better - and all the while not breaking their site to do so!
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I like this a lot and started with a few galleries as well but I don't see how I can get to them. Where do you find them on your homepage?
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I like it, so I'm taking full advantage of it. I hope it turns out to be productive. I work with several models, so I've created a gallery for each one, in case a potential buyer comes across one in a search and wants to see more of a particular model. I've created other galleries as appropriate.
http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-130012/artist-picks?page=1 (http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-130012/artist-picks?page=1)
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Can one change the gallery main image? Could not find a way but to deleting the first one I did not like and put it back again, so the second one in the gallery became the gallery image.
Further, the images are not shrinked to fit the image size of the gallery main image, so some of my silhouetted image galleries is displayed as only a filled black or a white image (not very appealing). ???
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Can one change the gallery main image? Could not find a way but to deleting the first one I did not like and put it back again, so the second one in the gallery became the gallery image.
In the catalog manager, select a gallery, the main image will be shown in the headline. Click on it. Then click (in the list of gallery images below) on the one you want to use as main image.
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What is the point?
How does it work? is it just us, who are doing some promotion or what?
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Thanks JoAnn and Warren for the tips on how to get started with this. Guess I will devote an afternoon or two to it. Beats actual work ;)
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In the catalog manager, select a gallery, the main image will be shown in the headline. Click on it. Then click (in the list of gallery images below) on the one you want to use as main image.
Clever man! Thanks Dirk (help yourself to a heart for that)
Another heart on the line:
How do you change the order of your galleries? Note that they are not displayed in the order from top to bottom when you edit them. Can not see what ordering is used.
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Go to Public Information from the menu under your name (top right of the contributor page). On that page you can reorder the galleries, then click Save Profile
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Okay, all done setting up the profile. It only shows 70% complete because I haven't linked to any social media. Which I am not going to do since I am not on facebook, linkedin, etc. Saved profile and all. How do I view my public profile?
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You're here (http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-6732p1.html). I have bookmarked mine because I can find it via a Google search or clicking on my name if I'm on an image's page (what the customer sees). What I don't see is a link from the contributor home page, which I think they should have. If you click your gallery from the contributor home page you go to the page without the galleries.
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Go to Public Information from the menu under your name (top right of the contributor page). On that page you can reorder the galleries, then click Save Profile
I am so privileged to know so many clever people. My heart to you my dear ;)
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Thanks JoAnn. I did manage to find that page,
but since the sets I created and made public weren't there, I didn't know it was the right place. Do you have to make ten sets in order for them to be visible?
Oh, nevermind. I see they are on a separate tab.
Good stuff!
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It does say minimum 10, but I can see six sets in your Galleries tab. It may just be that you need to reload the page?
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I have a "page" of facebook, but when I paste the link into the facebook link "template" URL they have, it tells me that it may only consist of letters and numbers and it does (except for the front slash required after the word "page" in the URL)?
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the wall.
I was just thinking: we sit here and spresd links all over hte net.
Thats mighty powerfull promotion.
BUT, what about the pictures that were too far down, so we didnt bother to click on them and put them into sets.
Are they now, not being found because all this fancy promotion overrules the keywords.
And if not, what is the use then, are we just digging another competitive grave. Is the agency doing this for our sake?
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How does the link to a page wall look without a front slash?
PS Whatever can increase our sales will surely be good for both?
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Hi, this is a good idea, here I leave my profile: http://shutterstock.com/gallery-945871.html (http://shutterstock.com/gallery-945871.html)
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Hi, this is a good idea, here I leave my profile: [url]http://shutterstock.com/gallery-945871.html[/url] ([url]http://shutterstock.com/gallery-945871.html[/url])
It's a nice way to browse people's work. I took a look at yours and think it might be better to split landscape into Architecture (the buildings) and Landscape (the other outdoor shots). I'd remove the fireworks shots from Landscapes as they have their own group. It makes it easier to see quickly assess each group if you have it tightly focussed.
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Thanks JoAnn. I did manage to find that page, but since the sets I created and made public weren't there, I didn't know it was the right place. Do you have to make ten sets in order for them to be visible?
Oh, nevermind. I see they are on a separate tab.
Good stuff!
You need to click the SHARE button, even if you do nothing but close it again. That sets them as active. The little icon to the left appears. ((())) kind of thing.
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Is there any way to change the order of the images within the sets? I'd rather showcase some - at least for the first few lines. An interesting feature, but I don't know if it will actually increase sales.
Still, they didn't seem to break everything else when they implemented it.
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I have no idea whether it will help bring in sales, but I have used the "See more ..." features on IS for a long time on the assumption that it probably can't hurt and might help.
I don't think you can currently change the order. I'd like to at least be able to control which four got picked for the set next to the gallery thumbnail when you hover over them. I'd rather have a choice of sort orders (as maintenance might get too hard for a custom sort order; BigStock had tried that ages ago and in addition to a truly dreadful UI for setting it up, you then have the chore of adding new things to the organized list or theyr'e dumped at the end). Popular, New and Downloads would be my sort order choices with a default to Popular.
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Unless I am missing something (again) it appears that the image download page does not show which, if any, sets it is in. That would seem an important feature. All I see is still the same "more like this" with totally unrelated images from other authors.
Like JoAnn, I have organized my Istock portfolio so that each download page has a link to "more from this series" and I believe it leads to sales of multiple images in a series.
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It is an interesting new feature, but the URLs seem a bit flaky. I can use my personalized URL: http://www.shutterstock.com/g/steveheap (http://www.shutterstock.com/g/steveheap), but that always leads to the popular images in my portfolio. As soon as you move away to that to look at the galleries, the URL changes to a numeric version: http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-138433/artist-picks (http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-138433/artist-picks)
Now - how best to use this??
Steve
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I have a "page" of facebook, but when I paste the link into the facebook link "template" URL they have, it tells me that it may only consist of letters and numbers and it does (except for the front slash required after the word "page" in the URL)?
Use only the 15 numbers at the end of your facebook URL :)
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I have a "page" of facebook, but when I paste the link into the facebook link "template" URL they have, it tells me that it may only consist of letters and numbers and it does (except for the front slash required after the word "page" in the URL)?
Use only the 15 numbers at the end of your facebook URL :)
Another clever girl! Hy heart to you as well (and let anyone say anything about blonds again) :-)
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Hi, this is a good idea, here I leave my profile: [url]http://shutterstock.com/gallery-945871.html[/url] ([url]http://shutterstock.com/gallery-945871.html[/url])
It's a nice way to browse people's work. I took a look at yours and think it might be better to split landscape into Architecture (the buildings) and Landscape (the other outdoor shots). I'd remove the fireworks shots from Landscapes as they have their own group. It makes it easier to see quickly assess each group if you have it tightly focussed.
Ok thanks !! I will follow your advice.
bye
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I've noticed a huge increase in 'Image Gallery Views (by logged in users)', at the bottom of the contributor page, since the new Profile pages were implemented. I used to only get 4-6 on average but last week it was 18.
It does suggest that buyers are being encouraged to explore portfolios as a result of this feature.
Anyone else?
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I had no idea that feature was there (I never scroll down from the contributor page and it's off the bottom of my screen)!!
Last week I had 10 views but I don't know what it used to be, so I can't compare :)
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thanks for pointing this out! i knew about galleries but not how to make them public , so i hadnt done much with them
to find your galleries, first just enter your shutterstock portfoilo page:
http://www.shutterstock.com/g/cascoly (http://www.shutterstock.com/g/cascoly)
near the top left, there's a choice of images or galeries - clicking galleries will give your url, eg:
http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-82956/artist-picks (http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-82956/artist-picks)
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I'm not a fan of this. Some may see it as a way to market your work yourself, thus supplementing the marketing your work receives. I see it as a gateway towards them pawning off the marketing job on us.
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I'm not a fan of this. Some may see it as a way to market your work yourself, thus supplementing the marketing your work receives. I see it as a gateway towards them pawning off the marketing job on us.
Well last year SS spent $30M on sales and marketing, about 25% of their entire revenue, so I don't think you can accuse them of shirking their responsibilities in that regard.
Of course the galleries are a means of self-marketing but only for your benefit. They are a tool to promote your portfolio to customers in competition with the 22M images from other contributors. It's free and it only takes a few minutes to set up. Up to you if you choose not to use it.
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I'm not a fan of this. Some may see it as a way to market your work yourself, thus supplementing the marketing your work receives. I see it as a gateway towards them pawning off the marketing job on us.
I totally agree with you. The site visitors which they attracted through their marketing can find your work on their own. This is just a blatant shifting of responsibility. Whatever you do, do not make use of this function and support the fascist pigs.
more for me than you.... 8)
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You guys obviously don't have to agree with me. In fact I'm relieved that you don't.
But for clarity, I did not say they have ever shirked the responsibility yet. They've been great and are my favorite agency. I even bought some stock! But I am nevertheless unsettled by the doors this opens. Yes, it opens some good ones. But it also sets the (potential) path in motion for them telling us our worth to them is related to things other than our photo portfolio. I see them ranking us, in someway, based on the traffic we bring into the site. Some of you will want that. I don't.
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I'm not a fan of this. Some may see it as a way to market your work yourself, thus supplementing the marketing your work receives. I see it as a gateway towards them pawning off the marketing job on us.
I totally agree with you. The site visitors which they attracted through their marketing can find your work on their own. This is just a blatant shifting of responsibility. Whatever you do, do not make use of this function and support the fascist pigs.
more for me than you.... 8)
I know this was in jest, but I do feel the need to mention that I think you misunderstood my point. I do not think that my buyers could have found my work on their own, and that SS's marketing has not helped me. Quite the opposite. I'm terrified of the potential eventuality that they reduce their marketing and tell me to do it myself via social platforms, because I'd be like a fish out of water. I feel that my success at SS is dependent on their marketing, not my own, which seems to be the opposite of what you got out of my post.
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I know this was in jest, but I do feel the need to mention that I think you misunderstood my point. I do not think that my buyers could have found my work on their own, and that SS's marketing has not helped me. Quite the opposite. I'm terrified of the potential eventuality that they reduce their marketing and tell me to do it myself via social platforms, because I'd be like a fish out of water. I feel that my success at SS is dependent on their marketing, not my own, which seems to be the opposite of what you got out of my post.
Glad you clarified it a bit. However. I doubt if the SS owners will ever be so stupid as to hand over the marketing of a multi million dollar and one of the most successful micro stock agencies to their non marketing experienced contributors. If I had millions of images under my control and I can get the contributors to assist in categorizing them better, which will hugely benefit my buyers and the contributors of such an action, I would have done the same. It is wise, it is economical and mutually beneficial. This is my take on the business perspective of it. Further it is up to every contributor to take part or not. I respect your choice, but do not agree.
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I think I agree with you, if you only take it that far. I have made the profile and made several sets, organizing my best photos, etc. I see the use in that, marginally (how different is it than the existing categories, if it's only taken this far)?
What I don't like is how we are encouraged to hawk these sets via social media. Do I see contributors hawking their sets as detrimental to SS? No, not really. I do, however, see it as detrimental to me. There are many many many contributors who are better "social butterflies" than me, though perhaps not better photographers. I know, being a photographer is as much about marketing as it is about photography, but I don't even think this hawking will help them directly. I just fear that we'll be ranked by the "social traffic" we generate, even if that traffic does not relate to sales.
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I see this more as a way to market to buyers that SS has already attracted. Making it easy for them to find similar themed images in my portfolio. I already do the same with lightboxes on Istock, but have to use my own coding to do so. SS makes it a lot easier to promote yourself, if you want.
FWIW, I am not interested in social media or promoting myself there. If I were it would be my own website I would market.
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I just fear that we'll be ranked by the "social traffic" we generate, even if that traffic does not relate to sales.
That will be an equally stupid business move. SS is, like all businesses, all about sales.
Most sites offers facebook and other links to help you promote your own port. This is thus not a new concept and no site have shifted their responsibilities that way (in any case none of the ones still operating).
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I know this was in jest, but I do feel the need to mention that I think you misunderstood my point. I do not think that my buyers could have found my work on their own, and that SS's marketing has not helped me. Quite the opposite. I'm terrified of the potential eventuality that they reduce their marketing and tell me to do it myself via social platforms, because I'd be like a fish out of water. I feel that my success at SS is dependent on their marketing, not my own, which seems to be the opposite of what you got out of my post.
Glad you clarified it a bit. However. I doubt if the SS owners will ever be so stupid as to hand over the marketing of a multi million dollar and one of the most successful micro stock agencies to their non marketing experienced contributors. If I had millions of images under my control and I can get the contributors to assist in categorizing them better, which will hugely benefit my buyers and the contributors of such an action, I would have done the same. It is wise, it is economical and mutually beneficial. This is my take on the business perspective of it. Further it is up to every contributor to take part or not. I respect your choice, but do not agree.
Exactly. Well said.