One of the most effective categories of the new Web 2.0 for the entire hospitality industry is Photo Sharing. Photo sharing is a term given to a category of website that provides means to publish a collection of digital photos online. These sites allow users to organize and share photos, often in a "photoblog" format, with journal entries for each photo.
Good photo sharing sites generally allow users to categorize and organize images, provide keyword tags, deliver images in multiple sizes, do basic image manipulation, and share images on their websites or blogs.
Why should you consider photo sharing?
Millions use photo-sharing sites. Search to see if there are already photos of your area or property, and see what people are posting about your property/business or area.
Photo sharing sites will link to your website with the photos you upload. This will help drive qualified traffic (if your photos are good), as well as provide potential search engine benefits.
Photo sharing sites are a convenient place to share photos, and they let you create slideshows to put on your website.
Photo sharing sites are a powerful and convenient way to manage your own photo library; photos can even be made private if you don't want the whole world to see them. You can also set up multiple users to allow collaboration.
Most photo sharing sites will print all kinds of collateral (calendars, booklets, posters, prints, stamps, etc) items from your photos. Take advantage of this to help strengthen your brand recognition.
Most photo sharing sites will let you create a "community", thereby offering great photo sharing and online marketing opportunities for Chamber of Commerce's, CVBs and tourist associations.
Most photo sharing sites offer easy and intuitive photo-editing of photos. This is a good place for people who don't pre-edit their photos on their computers to tweak them after they upload them.
How big is the photo sharing market? Depending upon which source you trust, there appear to be about 50 million US visitors to the top 10 players each month.
To view the complete version of this article go to: http://newsletter.blizzardinternet.com/author/trent-blizzard/
Michaeal Buczek works for Blizzard Internet Marketing. Blizzard Internet Marketing focuses on Search Engine Optimizaiton for the Hospitality industry. For more information please refer to: www.BlizzardInternet.com
