What is Explore on Flickr?
Sun Lamp
Tip #1: Post quality photographs
Tip #2: Post in groups, but not too many
When adding your photo to a group, be selective and choose established groups that give you a good return of comments and views. But don’t add your photo into too many groups, it will decrease your “interesting” score. I generally add a photo to about a dozen groups. Some of photos that made it onto Explore do have more, though this is usually a result of accepting an invite to a group after the fact. Limit the group count to no more than 20.
Tip #3: Use Tags
Tip #4: Find the right time to post
Creamcycle
King Batavus
Suggestions that don’t really matter
I’ve read suggestions that being sociable helps in getting onto Explore. Making comments, favourting photos, following others are all suggestions that have been made that will increase your chances. But I’ve been pretty anti-social on Flickr for the past few years and it doesn’t seem to make one iota of difference.
How often you post apparently doesn’t have any importance either. I’ve uploaded a dozen photos in a day with no result. In contrast, I added just one photo over a course of several weeks and then BAM! It gets featured on Explore.
It’s important to note that Flickr likely changes its algorithm every once in awhile, so things can change and perhaps being more social or posting more often may have influence in the future.
What does it mean to get featured on Flickr Explore
Why it shouldn’t matter to you
Why trying to get featured can be a disadvantage
There is a real pitfall in trying to get featured on Flickr Explore because you mentally construct a yardstick to measure how good you are as a photographer. It will no longer matter what photographs resonate with you, but rather what your audience wants.
What will follow is your self-esteem will take a beating when you begin to compare yourself to others in a numbers game, be it on Flickr, Instagram or any other platform. This will lead to wasting time and energy on how to acquire more likes, views, favourites, and followers instead of focusing on creating work that matters to you.
Tetris
Spring Loaded Lepper
The Pedersen
Twelve
Toscana
The Starting Lineup
The Contortionist
I read your list of tips and all I could do is laugh. Quality, Groups, Tags, and time of day are the qualifiers? Quality helps, but I don’t think that’s a determining factor. I’ve seen some crappy images in Explore with thousands of views and likes and wonder why?. Matter of fact, I was featured in Explore once, years ago (been on flickr off and on since 2007), and it was a nothing image. Not one I would have expected to be included. Yet it got tens of thousands of views, a few likes and the obligatory comments. You know, the “Nice Shot”, “Great capture”, etc. As for Groups and Tags, I’ve seen Explore images not included in a single Group. Same with Tags. No groups or tags, and yet still find their way on Explore. You mentioned mornings as the best time of day for submission. Are you referring to the morning hours in the West or the Middle East, or…? Now, your tips may or may not help get consideration, but I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s any rhyme or reason to flickr’s methods. I’ll bet the flickr team couldn’t explain how the algorithm works. It’s a holdover from when Yahoo owned the platform. It didn’t make sense then either. I shoot for myself. Although it would be nice to be appreciated for some of my work.
On a side note, I used to live in Amsterdam with my family back in the 1960’s. We lived just a few doors down from the Royal Theater Carré. My mother was born in Amsterdam and at the time we lived with Maxim Hamel, a well known dutch actor and family friend.
Thanks for listening
Hello Michelle, thanks for stopping by and sharing your comment. You bring up some interesting points and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with them. Trying to get featured on Flickr Explore is something people have dug into for quite some time now. I’m certain that the algorithm has changed, reverted, evolved over the years. Granted, this post is also 5 years old.
These tips are based on some of my observations over the years. I ignored tags for a time, added photos to dozens of groups, then when I leveled out a bit, getting onto Explore seem to follow. My subject matter didn’t change, nor did the quality of my photos for the most part.
Take it with a grain of salt, because if I really knew than so would everyone else. Though there was a time where I was getting images featured on Flickr Explore somewhat consistently. All of the ones in this post are on Explore and I could add several others to the list. I really do wonder though how a photo of a dilapidated bike saddle could get featured.
Good point about the mornings, lets go with Pacific Daylight Time ;)
Hey that’s pretty cool you used to live in Amsterdam such a wats back. I hope some of that stuff here brings back a bit of nostalgia for you. Cheers.
I like this post. I know professional photographers who never been on explore (I asked) In fact if I had not put a widget of Flickr on my new phone I wouldn’t even have heard of Explore (how ignorant is that?) – no idea how images are chosen – it could be that flickr had a spy in the camp and anything they like it likes. Hahaha!
Happy cycling!
Hey Bloomsbury Birder, glad you like the post, thanks for stopping by! ;)