YAY just got our image number 900.000! Congratulations to the photographer Hbak from us at YAY!

We are planning a competition to mark the one million images-milestone. Details and prizes will be revealed in a couple of days!

Linda

Some of you might have experienced images back in pending, and then either rejected or back in your portfolio.This is an ongoing process here at YAY. When we notice images lacking in either quality, keywords, description, or if we find there are too many similar images in your portfolio we’ll send the images back for re-evaluating.

These images are evaluated together with new uploads, and are not marked in any way. So, it’s as fair as we can make the process. I would advice all contributors to be careful with their keywords, as images appearing “out of place” are especially noticeable, and therefore more easily sent back for new evaluation. We are not going through the whole database; neither are we aiming this against any particular photographer. So it’s not an early spring cleaning, but a day to day process (as most cleaning is).

If you feel you’ve been faulty rejected, please e-mail me at linda@yaymicro.com, and I’ll be happy to look into it! Also feel free to e-mail us if you have any other questions at post@yaymicro.com.

Cheers, Linda

There have been a few inquiries on how sales are developing at YAY Micro. A few contributors have terminated their account with us, because they haven’t seen the anticapted growth in sales. Deleting accounts makes little sense for contributors and for us. It requires work both from our photographers and approvers before an image is added to the database. When that is done, however, the image is ready for sales and no more work is needed. Anyhow, we do agree that it is about time that we give a status update on how sales are going. We can’t give you too much detail; there are nosy competitors out there.

So, how are sales developing at YAY? The answer is very promising! The number of downloads since September 2008 (we opened for sales in June 2008) has increased with a whopping 28 % per month. In 2009 the average monthly increase was even higher, namely 32 %. There are seasonal variations in the number of download (f.ex. July 2009 had 67 % fewer downloads than June 2009).

Graph:

Number of downloads per month 2009

In regards to photographer’s payouts, the numbers are even better looking for our contributors. The total payout during 2009 grew by 67 % per month! That means that our contributors are starting to earn some good cash. Even when compared to the number of contributors (grows at an average of 5 %), both downloads and payouts are looking increasingly good.

That doesn’t mean that we are resting on our laurels. Quite the opposite: We’ve increased our staff and will now add more resources into sales. We will also start more aggressive marketing towards both contributors and customers in China. Keep those uploads coming and we will guarantee that you will earn money. YAY started from scratch two years ago – and building a site requires patience. As the chinese say: Even the tallest tower started from the ground.

Happy microstocking!

Jan

One of our photographers, Todd (graficallyminded), has done an interview with us at YAY in his blog Arenacreative.com/blog. The interview’s mainly about YAY, our background  as well as how we perceive the stock photo business and the future of the stock photo industry. If you have any viewpoints or further questions we’d love to hear from you – just leave a comment!

In 2008, a new microstock agency popped up that caught a lot of our attention. The site’s design was so simple, yet visually pleasing and easy to navigate. Even the back end for contributors was designed for speed and ease of use. I’ve been personally selling my images from them from the start, and recently I had an opportunity to interview the team. I’m sure many will be interested in getting some insight from Yay Micro coming directly from it’s founders and employees.

Read the rest of the interview…

Linda

There’s an ongoing race in the forum among photographers to reach payout. The rules are simple: The first one to reach 30 euros gets fame, glory and something to be proud about. Anyhow, this is a great initiative and we thought we might give the participants (and others) some tips on how to market their portfolio themeselves.There are quite a few good ways for microstock contributors to market their own portfolio and increase sales. The main point of marketing your content is to get it out all over the internet! A little effort on marketing your images can increase your income more than adding new images.

Blogs:

If you have a blog, use it. Blogs are a great marketing tool if used strategically. First of all: Write about and link directly to your portfolio.There are a lot of good microstock blogs out there, but most of them focus a lot on photographers and not on customers. Try to write posts that could be interesting for customers. You can also find other blogs and comment on them, even adding links to your portfolio there.

Try googling for blogs about a specific theme you have great images of and comment there. Remember that blogs are virtually free and have no time limits. The posts you write now can continue to drive traffic to your portfolio years from now, and therefore generate sales.

If you post relevant content, include a call-to-action (ex. link to portfolio) that fits contextually, update regularly and add an rss-feed, your blog can give you a good return on the time invested. And remember: Never spam (don’t post comments like “Nice blog, check out my portfolio at…”).

 Check out Jeremy Wright’s book Blog Marketing.

Facebook:

Facebook has gone from being a news-and-photo-sharing-site for college students, to being both mainstream and big business. With 200 million users, you can’t afford not be there. The problem is how to use it for marketing purposes.Well, use your social network for what it’s worth. Try to get your “friends” interested in what you post.

Upload low-resolution images of your latest shots, and explain the story behind them. Make a group or a page for your portfolio and spread the word. Add links to your portfolio in posts and on your status bar. Try to get the people around you engaged, ask for their comments and tips.

Inside CRM has an extensive list of resources on how to use Facebook as a marketing tool.

 

Twitter:

Twitter is the fastest growing social network on the web, and gives its users a chance to write short messages to everyone that’s interested. Use it for what it’s worth. Write interesting tweets and get potential customers to follow you. Tweet about new images, recommodations – and search for others looking for images that you have and message them. Ask your followers for recommandations and comments on your work.

Toprank has a short article about Twitter and marketing which includes an extensive list of references.

 

Flickr/Photobucket/other photo sites:

Upload images to Flickr and other photo sharing sites. This is a great way for potential customers to see what you can offer. Then link to your portfolio. More and more small publications use Flickr for finding CC (Creative Commons) images. If you can lead these guys to microstock, there are money to be made. Flickr isn’t just a place to upload photos – it’s a huge community, and its got great tools for commenting images, creating groups and easy guides on how to add images to your homepage. Flickr has also been integrated into Yahoo’s image search, which drives a lot of traffic directly to Flickr-images. And I wouldn’t be too afraid of people stealing images – people who can’t afford to use a few euros for an image, isn’t going to buy your images anyway.

Doshdosh has a great article on how to use Flickr to generate traffic.

 

Google Adwords:

Invest in an ad campaign that links directly to your images/portfolio. Adwords is easy to use and you can control exactly how much/little you want to use on ads. If you do it correctly, it can become an impresive sales booster. YAY is working on setting up an extensive Google Ad campaign that will start with the launch of the new site layout.

You should also link to the sites that give you the best commission (YAY!). Also remember that any links to your portfolio will increase YAY’s overall visibility, which again will lead to more traffic and increased sales. Since the commission photographers get at YAY is far better than other sites, it is better to market your portfolio here than on other sites that represent you.

Microstockinsider has an article with more hints and tips on how to market your images.

The winner of the competition in the forum will have his/her pictures on the front-page and be used in marketing material YAY sends to its customers!

So, what are you waiting for? Go market your images Good luck!

Jan