Melcher on stock commentators

[geogphotos]

2 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

Google Licensing seems promising. I'm surprised at how often some of my PhotoShelter images come up on the first page of searches, right alongside those of the big guys like Alamy. However, I've had no inquiries since Google launched the program. I can't see how Google could be collecting cuts from image licenses. Also, I think they would be too smart (in a business sense) to get directly involved in the stock photo business these days.

 

I don't think that Google images is where serious image buyers go to shop.  Actually, in many ways it seems like a waste of time.  

 

The Google Image algorithm gives more priority to images that are embedded within 'meaningful' text. My searches of my small village of Shottisham show that more priority is given to small businesses, newspapers, estate agents, and admittedly some from various stock agencies including Alamy. But it all a very mixed bag. 

 

Maybe I missed it but I do not see a search filter choice for licensable  images 

 

After two pages of uninspiring results ( to a stock photo buyer) it says:

 

"Looks like you've reached the end"

 

Edited September 27, 2021 by geogphotos

[John Mitchell]

I too don't think that serious image buyers use Google much, same goes for Twitter, FB, and all the other social media where we're advised to relentlessly "promote" our work. Why would they waste their time Googling, etc. when all they have to do is go to a stock agency?

 

I could be wrong of course...

 

 

Edited September 27, 2021 by John Mitchell

[imageplotter]

On 26/09/2021 at 08:58, geogphotos said:

 

The overhelming majority of suppliers don't care about being squeezed. They don't do it for money but for the thrill and sense of purpose.  They produce perfectly saleable content with no need to cover their costs.

True.

[imageplotter]

16 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

I too don't think that serious image buyers use Google much, same goes for Twitter, FB, and all the other social media where we're advised to relentlessly "promote" our work. Why would they waste their time Googling, etc. when all they have to do is go to a stock agency?

 

I could be wrong of course...

 

 

 

Both news and stock buyers do use social media, I´ve had quite a few direct sales resulting from twitter posts despite having only a very modest following (direct sales, not via alamy).

 

The Alamy content/stock side has a decent social media following so hopefully capitalises on that, although it may well be that a large % of the followers are contributors. That may explain the relatively low engagement.  I don´t do insta but Alamy Content's engagement and followers there also feels quite low given that instagram tends to get high engagement for those who post a lot there, 6.6k followers on insta isn´t a lot for a media related, image based agency. The news side  does not have a large following and engagement is also low, posts not frequent enough (every few days at best), which reduced engagement. They may not have enough time/resource, which is fair enough and understandable, they need to prioritise their resource.  Although it does feel like the news feed and the whole news operation are slowly being abandoned. The feed is such a mess most days with the many duplicated sets from SOPA and ZUMA, and too much unmoderated content flooding in from other wires like TASS, Sipa, dpa, too. Often, alamy is even promoting these wire images on their social media, rather than direct alamy contributors. 

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by imageplotter

[John Mitchell]

9 hours ago, imageplotter said:

 

Both news and stock buyers do use social media, I´ve had quite a few direct sales resulting from twitter posts despite having only a very modest following (direct sales, not via alamy).

 

The Alamy content/stock side has a decent social media following so hopefully capitalises on that, although it may well be that a large % of the followers are contributors. That may explain the relatively low engagement.  I don´t do insta but Alamy Content's engagement and followers there also feels quite low given that instagram tends to get high engagement for those who post a lot there, 6.6k followers on insta isn´t a lot for a media related, image based agency. The news side  does not have a large following and engagement is also low, posts not frequent enough (every few days at best), which reduced engagement. They may not have enough time/resource, which is fair enough and understandable, they need to prioritise their resource.  Although it does feel like the news feed and the whole news operation are slowly being abandoned. The feed is such a mess most days with the many duplicated sets from SOPA and ZUMA, and too much unmoderated content flooding in from other wires like TASS, Sipa, dpa, too. Often, alamy is even promoting these wire images on their social media, rather than direct alamy contributors. 

 

 

I don't know much about news photography. I was thinking mainly of regular editorial stock images. My guess is that magazines, book publishers, etc. prefer to use stock agencies rather than Google and social media. At one time they licensed images from individual photographers, but not much any longer, at least not in my experience.