ClickaSnap.com: How Useful Is It?
This large photo sharing platform is many things to many people.
You’ve heard of ClickaSnap.com probably from some Youtuber or Tiktok star who makes claims of getting rich sharing your snapshots. Put most of that hype out of your mind and concentrate on what it is that makes you take photographs and want people to see them. Mine are all located at “Lens4anEye.”
Some people are long-time practitioners of the Optical Arts, others have only recently picked up their first camera. Most people fall somewhere along the wide variation of interests and experiences. ClickaSnap.com is for sharing your own pictures, not images you saw on the internet and think you’ll share them. The platform has a list of Terms of Service which enumerates acceptable and unacceptable imagery. Don’t ignore them.
In order to determine how the platform can be useful to you, you must decide whether you are in it for
1. the exposure of your craft to strangers around the world,
2. for being a place for your friends and family to see your snapshots,
3. to get feedback as a critique of your skills,
4. access to a Seller’s Shop at which you can sell digital files and prints of you work.
Pause here while you ponder what your level of work will be to meet the above expectations. While there are hundreds of thousands of ClickaSnap subscribers they won’t trip over your profile without your efforts to get them to see your pictures. I don’t have access to ClickaSnap’s statistics but it would be safe to say most of the subscribers are the FREE ones. Those profiles represent people who want to see if it is worth their time and effort to prepare pictures, upload them and properly identify them so others will “trip over them.” The other subscriber level cost money and breaking even will take a while.
In the four months I have been a subscriber on the ClickaSnap platform, 933 subscriber have visited my Profile and looked at at least one of my pictures.
The chart above is the frequency of visits. 70% have only visited once. Another 15% stopped by twice. The number drops off rapidly after 3 visits (5%). A good factor is most views of my photos come from non-scribers through Twitter, Facebook, Google searches and other as yet unknown (to me) sources. Those views did not just happen. I made posts to Facebook groups which might like my pictures. I utilize a Twitter feed and widely employ hashtags [#streetphotography #BlackandWhitephoto #PhotooftheDay] et al. A good description with the images is essential for Google to index them. Leaving your uploads titled as IMG_1234.JPG is wasting that way of getting views. If your intentions are as a hobby, don’t worry it will remain known only to you. Even your friends and family are a hard-sell to get them to look.
Generating Views
Twitter and Facebook are free. You can create accounts and post links to your pictures. It remains to be seen if you can reach the right people. When you do, the results can be good.
When you are a serious photographer you must use as many platforms as you are able to pay attention to. It has to do with that saying about putting “all your eggs in one basket.” Diversify. Even when you do find a productive place to post about your images, keep in mind they age rapidly. Even the best post will get “pushed down” very fast in 2 days or less. On Twitter it may be a matter of hours before other peoples’ content pile on top of yours. Few people, including myself, take the time to scroll down beyond the first 3 pages of any website. Keep something of interest at the top of your Profile for when visitors come looking. In the newsprint business they talk of keeping a story, or at least the headline, “above the fold”. Think of the newspapers stacked for sale, “above the fold” can be seen when looking in the direction of the stack. Many stories never get seen because they are on the bottom, or they get buried on Page 6.
So far I have said nothing about photo quality or subject matter. Those factors will shape whether or not people will come back to see your material. When a subscriber visits your Profile and starts to scroll, they make the decision for whether or not to click on a picture. If they don’t click you will never know they were there. The Notifications page will show you their activity if they actually click something.
They make their decision within several seconds: Scroll, bail or click. Too many out of focus frames; bail. Crooked horizons: bail. Pets, babies, fingernails, food and the ubiquitous airplane wingtip; they are gone fast. Yes, there are subscribers who love those subjects but look at other Profiles and see how many Views those pictures get.
There is no shortage of sunrise/sunsets, beach shots and Cappuccinos. You love those shots, but do others? Again look at the view counts of those pictures.
Follow others. It is difficult to justify following a subscriber who has only 12 pictures unless they are extraordinary. Make sure you have enough content to encourage a return visit. Keep in mind 2nd and 3rd visits are difficult to obtain. Subscribers who Follow you will see your new posts in their Feed and have the opportunity to check them out.
Making Sales
One of the big advantages of ClickaSnap.com is that they are a fulfillment house for sales of your pictures. You do not need to have a printer, a shipping account nor a method of receiving payments. They will handle all of that as part of the price to the buyer. Once upon a time I was making 13"x19" prints for sale. Business was good. The printer cost me $600 and a full set of inks was about $130. Printing went well until the Print Heads needed to be replaced. The manufacturer wanted $77 for each of the four devices. At $308 the cost suggested a different approach. I needed inks too. The price of $438 was above the cost of a new printer at $399. At about $10 profit on a ClickaSnap fulfillment sale I would need 40 sales just to make up for the investment. Then there would be packaging and shipping to pay. With their fulfillment process I have zero investment to make. Of course, many subscribers don’t have access to the funds necessary to print for themselves. The fulfillment services are important.
Conclusion
Image sharing via ClickaSnap.com is a labor intensive endeavor as it is with every such platform. Pictures need to be their best presentation. Descriptions and tags need to be relevant and extensive. Your commitment to your goals is essential.
