What is Explore on Flickr?
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
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.