Author Topic: Shutterstock very bad results (Read 10648 times)

Minsc · « **Reply #25 on:** January 08, 2019, 16:42 »

Try to think like a buyer. Would you buy your own work?

There are too many duplicates in your portfolio. It confuses me, it confuses the buyer and everyone looking at your portfolio. Nobody look at sets, they just care about what they're looking for and what's in your portfolio. When I go into your portfolio, the presentation is overwhelming and I just want to leave.

Understand the market instead of doubling down on your niches. What's the point of 1127 images of the Lofoten Islands? Does anyone care? Simple 3D illustrations (unless they're amazing) are so 2000's. It stopped being trendy about 5 years ago and people have moved on.

You're basically fighting against yourself and competing against yourself. Focus on quality instead of quantity. You have over 100,000 images and very few of them stand out.

Not Today · « **Reply #26 on:** January 09, 2019, 01:29 »

Quote from: Harvepino on January 08, 2019, 16:19

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on January 08, 2019, 14:39
Quote from: Harvepino on January 08, 2019, 03:54
...So I started working really hard on my portfolio, ... and started creating way more illustrations, hired people to help me, paid for keyworders etc. ...Any ideas are appreciated.

If you're honest with yourself, looking back on the decision you made to become a 3D map/satellite view factory (among other things), does it still make sense that this would really boost your income?

I searched your port for the keyword Germany and there were 500+ results - a mind-numbing display of tiny variations. Satellite views with and without borderlines around the country. Slight color variations, etc. Perhaps less than 10 would have been fine to cover your bases. And not all countries are equally interesting to stock buyers - I got similar numbers of results for countries that I doubt generate many searches, let alone many purchases.

In addition to a flood of similars, what you've done is so easy to copy if one or two should turn out to be really saleable. So you've invested time and money in mass producing things with limited market potential and low barriers to competitors.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but I think the issue is largely not a result of SS's problems - although if they'd rejected lots of your similars when you first started down this path they'd have been doing you a huge favor (IMO).

I didn't look at your videos as I really have no expertise there regarding what sells or doesn't; this was just about the photo & 3D part of your portfolio.
Thank you for your honest answer and advice Jo Ann. I now realise what a fatal flaw was my decision to make so many versions of images for each country. I must admit I feel ashamed and angry with myself.
I'll take a step back and refocus my attention to new concepts.

Don't beat yourself up, we all make mistakes while learning as market keeps evolving. Nobody has a full proof way of selling stock images and videos, and a formula that works this year might not work the year after.

You can always check which files you've sold most in the last months and try to understand why these files specifically. Is it because of subject, or technique, or placement in search results... And then you've got a starting point on what to do next. Or you can try something completely different altogether.

Also, check the files that never sold, and try to understand why they haven't sold. For instance, if your position in search results is good and there's many duplicates of these files, but they've never sold in 2 years, you might want to keep only 1 or 2 similar versions to give more space to other content.

Or if you don't want to delete files, you can always change title, description and limit your keywords to a minimum for each similar file using different words, so they don't appear all at once for the same search. You can then cover more ground and allow buyers to breathe.

Here's a few interesting articles about giving too many choices to buyers. See how it can impact them negatively. (I've just found these on Google btw, no affiliation).

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overchoice

2) https://neilpatel.com/blog/too-many-choices/

3) https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/what-predicts-consumer-choice-overload

Happy reading!

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #27 on:** January 09, 2019, 04:45 »

+1 on the don't beat yourself up. It's an act of desperation brought on by SS's policy of accepting everything. It used to be that good images would be seen by buyers rather than buried within days/ hours. Now there has to be a balancing act with volume to even get anyone to see your work. Definitely overdid it, but I can understand the reasoning.

Also, this isn't like the people uploading 1000s of background that are just a gradient in different colors, at least the globes seem to be of different countries. I mean someone looking for Germany focused isn't going to go for the UK if Germany isn't there. I just think you've shot yourself in the foot and lost all the buyers who may have been attracted to look through your portfolio based on the first few pages.

StanRohrer · « **Reply #28 on:** January 09, 2019, 07:53 »

Figure out which of your images are best selling. Then do a Google Image search (as well as other image search engines). If you can find where your images are used you can determine how they were used and why your image was significant to the buyer. This might help you "think like a buyer".

H2O · « **Reply #29 on:** January 09, 2019, 08:12 »

I noticed that I have quite a few days, sometimes a whole week, when I sell nothing in America, my sales used to be half America and then the rest of the World.

Their algorithm seems to be deliberately manipulated, which is just plain wrong.

Essentially they are keeping the rest of the World out of the American market, they are supposed to be a global platform for our work and they take a commission for this, it seems to me that like Getty/istock, that they have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

I would like to think I am wrong, but the data seems to point otherwise.

Personally I believe that all these Microstock companies should publish facts and figures, like how many files where sold in Italy and in which Country those file were created, this should be on a monthly basis.

Then we need clarity on the financial side, so we can see how much money was made in each Country and which Country received the commission.

At the moment too much information is opaque.

I am sure all these Companies have this data and we are the Creatives producing the work that they are selling for us.

Video-StockOrg · « **Reply #30 on:** January 09, 2019, 08:42 »

cathyslife · « **Reply #31 on:** January 09, 2019, 11:25 »

Quote from: H2O on January 09, 2019, 08:12

I noticed that I have quite a few days, sometimes a whole week, when I sell nothing in America, my sales used to be half America and then the rest of the World.

Their algorithm seems to be deliberately manipulated, which is just plain wrong.

Essentially they are keeping the rest of the World out of the American market, they are supposed to be a global platform for our work and they take a commission for this, it seems to me that like Getty/istock, that they have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.

I would like to think I am wrong, but the data seems to point otherwise.

Personally I believe that all these Microstock companies should publish facts and figures, like how many files where sold in Italy and in which Country those file were created, this should be on a monthly basis.

Then we need clarity on the financial side, so we can see how much money was made in each Country and which Country received the commission.

At the moment too much information is opaque.

I am sure all these Companies have this data and we are the Creatives producing the work that they are selling for us.

It will never happen, but you can fight back easily. Stop doing business with them.

tonobalaguer · « **Reply #32 on:** January 28, 2019, 12:54 »

My portafolio is not a little one of 50k and after reaching the 25k images, no matter how hard I work and how frequently I submit, month by month I always have a lower monthly income than the previous month, It doesn't matter if I do my best to produce quality of not, it doesn't matter, never again my income is growing on SS