Steve

The two things are totally different. You can choose to use the plugin and create your own site - great, that is one choice and I've been very happy with its performance.

Then, you can choose to put certain images into Symzio - on a one by one basis if you like. Symzio is a new venture, so of course there are not many images there. Hence the post on this forum to let people know it was starting.

Steve

Steve

The two things are totally different. You can choose to use the plugin and create your own site - great, that is one choice and I've been very happy with its performance.

Then, you can choose to put certain images into Symzio - on a one by one basis if you like. Symzio is a new venture, so of course there are not many images there. Hence the post on this forum to let people know it was starting.

Steve

understood, but just wanted to inject some reality to counteract the overblown promises of an unreliable narrator of an unproven system; at present there seems to be little reason for any buyer to use symzio --and why, with 200 sites are so few participating?

direct reports of results from those who have joined would led the project a lot more credibility, and converts

Would consider joining.  Any success stories from current users? Any regrets?

Would consider joining.  Any success stories from current users? Any regrets?

I encourage you to read a lot of the stuff I've written about the infrastructure that is Symbiostock and Symzio, because that is where the main meat of it is. There is no magic pill to the problem we've been facing. By signing up with Symbiostock and Symzio, and launching your independent site, you're not going to suddenly start getting sales.

What you will get, however, is a strong sense of the powerful infrastructure we've created which we can use to forge long term success in this business. As you explore more and more of what we're all trying to do and how streamlined the whole process is, you'll start understanding that this is a unique opportunity.

The only thing I'm relatively certain of is that based on all the policies, infrastructure, and mechanisms we now have in place with regards to Symbiostock and Symzio, which has been almost a year in the making, if enough contributors passionately do their best to fight for independent success, a noticeable portion of our monthly revenue will permanently come from Symzio and our independent sites, providing an income stability we've long yearned for. All we need is impassioned participation.

I encourage you to read this post I made:

http://www.symbiostock.org/forums/topic/the-big-switch-the-two-responsibilities-of-every-symbiostock-contributor/

It outlines what every participating member should do to ensure that we don't lose this particularly potent opportunity. Our current members have been spectacular - extremely active in pointing out bugs, pushing the marketing, and debating important mechanisms.

And based on my experiences, if you go through the trouble of launching your independent site, it really is in your best interests to maximize the return you get on your investment. It's all about deciding, right now, if you want to join the fight or sit on the sidelines. You can easily wait for others to do all the work and join when you see revenue coming in - it is up to you to decide what path will provide you the most personal and professional fulfillment.

But just imagine how it will feel when you make your first sale on Symzio, through our own agency - you sell a medium sized image for $1.99 and see $1.80 commission in your account. Then you click over to your affiliate control panel and see an additional $0.19 cents in revenue, because that sale came directly from one of your marketing links.

That is 100% of sales revenue, directly to you. You then flip over to the agencies and see 5 full sized royalty free sales, totaling $1.65 in revenue. Then you ask yourself - "if those sales had come through Symzio, I'd have made $10!". Then look at the entire month -

Agencies: 150 royalty free, full sized images distributed to customers to use indefinitely - your compensation, $49.5.
Symzio: 150 one-time use, medium sized images, distributed to customers to use once - your compensation, $300.

Will the numbers vary? Yes. Are we going to successfully compete with agencies and get all those sales immediately? No. But as I've pointed out on the Symbiostock forums a few times, if even one sale comes to us directly rather than through third parties, we're moving forward by leaps and bounds.

I apologize about this being relatively long, but I wanted to curb any expectations that participation is just signing up - at a minimum, contributors will be encouraged to use social media to promote both their independent sites and Symzio. It's more than just uploading to agencies and sitting back, but the return is so large and valuable that it is nearly inconceivably sweet, given how bad it has been for us for so long.

Thanks for your question, and I hope additional contributors respond to it, sharing their honest thoughts as well. I also hope you are inspired to join in the fight.

Potential contributors to Symzio should note a few key terms

And who gets to decide if the editorial tag should be there? If there are to be such draconian penalties, there need to be detailed guidelines as to what the Symzio agency's standards are for requiring an editorial tag. Vague handwaving about "appears to be editorial" just doesn't cut it.

Using "contributor controlled" as a marketing gimmick and having terms like most agencies that leave the contributor largely powerless seems to me to be contradictory.

Read the agreements very carefully to be sure you can live with them before participating.

indeed -- thanks very much @Jo Ann for pointing this out. Even if the FAQs may have been updated, this doesn't change much as of this writing.

One doesn't "clarify" stuff like that in some FAQs but one writes proper T&C in the first place! Please have this done properly, @Robin. Unless this is remedied, this is a huge red flag against using Symzio.

-- Cliff

ALL you contributors will be sorry in 12 months time!!!!

I can guarantee you that you're wrong about that. Even if Symzio as central hub agency fails, contributors will still have their own website presenting their best work available for licensing.

Sounds pretty good, 1.99 getting 1.80 for Med 1 time use, is it clear to buyers that it's a one time use?

Non simplistiy  is istock's  downfall and advertising lots gave it its rise in the beginning and before it was sold, it's unique hi quality collection with a happy medium price was what sustained it




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote from: fotomine on December 31, 2015, 19:35

Would consider joining.  Any success stories from current users? Any regrets?

If you're a stock contributor anyway, and you're able and willing to set up your own Wordpress website, then it's a no-brainer really. It's like doing the work once but creating 2 sales channels, your own site with 100% revenue, and Symzio with at least 80%. And the community network tools of the Symzio system will even push your own website in a way you could never achieve on your own.

Putting together your own website is a huge amount of work, and for most people it simply won't be worth it. It wasn't for me. I could have spent that time creating content for the sites that do sell, even if I get lower royalties from them. If you have some sort of built-in customer base...say, you own a printing shop and can create images that would be printed on your items, so you can direct printing customers to your image store...or if you have a network of potential buyers who already use you for custom work, so you can suggest they also check out your library of stock images...or you're knowledgeable about "black hat" methods to drive traffic to your website...then it might be worth it.

Sadly, it sounds like Symzio still leaves it up to everyone to fend for him or herself when it comes to marketing and getting traffic. In fact, Robin expects you to help out with marketing Symzio as well. More time you could have spent creating content.

If I had it to do again (and I might) I'd create a simple portfolio site for myself with a small sample of my work and ask people to contact me directly about licensing or custom stuff. Then I could set prices depending on the usage.

For what it's worth, I guess I'm one of the "success stories," with a few sales a month. Not enough to even start to make up for all the time it took to create my site, though.

Quote from: Redneck on January 02, 2016, 08:50

Quote from: fotomine on December 31, 2015, 19:35

Would consider joining.  Any success stories from current users? Any regrets?

If you're a stock contributor anyway, and you're able and willing to set up your own Wordpress website, then it's a no-brainer really. It's like doing the work once but creating 2 sales channels, your own site with 100% revenue, and Symzio with at least 80%. And the community network tools of the Symzio system will even push your own website in a way you could never achieve on your own.

Putting together your own website is a huge amount of work, and for most people it simply won't be worth it. It wasn't for me.

We've discussed all issues the old Symbiostock had (mostly in the Facebook group). One issue was that it really was quirky, hard to handle and not easy to maintain.
These problems are gone. The new Symbiostock plugin is based on WooCommerce as selling platform. The new plugin is way easier to set up and to handle, is more performant and a lot more stable.

The second, even more important core issue was, that Leo as developer and driving force couldn't really gain anything from his efforts toward the project and eventually completely dropped the ball. This problem is gone now, too. Robin is not only a very capable developer but he's also entrepreneur enough to invest his time and work into an enterprise designed to make money at a later point.
I certainly don't agree on everything with Robin or Symzio, but at least there's a clear vision and a strong driving force. And it's one of the best stock selling options available. From a technical, sales, and revenue point of view.

I still have my original Symbiostock (SYS) site, although with a new layout of my own choosing (Elegant Themes' Divi) and Woo Commerce (using Leo's grfx setup): http://bestnaturestock.com/

When Robin came out with "new SYS," I understood I couldn't migrate the text I'd written for each image in "old SYS" and would have to redo it all. With 2,000 images/pages of text, that was a deal-breaker for me then, and it still would be.

So I'll ask now: is that still the case or is it now possible to migrate the descriptive text that accompanies each of my images?

Overall, I'm happy with the look and feel of my site, but as a sole proprietor I don't get any benefit from being part of a group. I could see switching if the text carried over.

And I appreciate the feedback from Redneck and others I got to know in the early-SYS days. It's good to hear you're happy with the new SYS.

marthamarks, i assume youra graphic designer and how are your sales using the graphic designer plugin?