Social Media, embrace it, kick it or ignore it

You got the shot, and maybe twelve others. You want to show your story, so how do you do it.  Facebook is the option that the most pictures arrive on.  Instagram is quickly rising up. Its really hard to know what to do.  Unless you want to keep these pictures only on your own hard drive or in a photo album located on your bookshelf, your sharing your pictures somehow.

  I think first thing you have to consider is one how widely do you want to share your pictures. This is a valid concern when your dealing with personal pictures.  Whatever you do you have to be concerned  if you can exercise some kind of control over who sees it.  Secondly, you need to be concerned about is copyright.  I know more then one friend who is not professional who took a shot that was later picked up and sold. Once you put it out there on the web it ain't coming back if you didn't copyright it. Thirdly it may be a great idea and a great site but does anybody use the site, or better yet does anyone but photographers use the site?

Social Media is here and like it is or not we are all involved. The best thing that you need to is familiarize yourself with the various formats and realize how  people use it. Think how important getting your images out is to you. Some of my thoughts

Facebook: Low quality (I don't care what they say, if you look at those pictures on a full screen its not so good...). The most likely  to reach the widest audience of  friends however I think the format encourages people to just move through the images without really looking at them

Instagram: Low quality, its only good for the phone, which some people may think is fine, but I hope my picture create a desire to really look at it. If your not sure of what I am saying take one of those pictures forward it to your email. and  then look at it on a full screen, don't even think about printing...

Pinterest:  A good tool however I just haven't exploited this to its full potential. and I think it takes a certain "touch" to get really picked up.

G+: The format I use the most because of the relatively high quality of the pictures and the finite control I maintain. It also works well in my workflow. However the biggest downside is that the users are heavily photographers and the chances of breaking out of this group  is low. However  like Flickr it does get you out of your "zone" of friends.

Flickr: This use to be hot ticket but I think its best days are over. However it serves as a great place to keep your pictures in a safe repository. Great potential to get you exposed to  people not in your  typical circle of friends.

500px: Great for the most polished  photographers but I think its intimidating for the casual photographer

Photo.net  Fantastic site  but really if your not hard core into photography you aren't going here.

Hi.co:  New site that focuses on story telling and photography quite interesting. I like it  however does it have legs....  I don't know but I would love it if someone bigger picks them up.

 For me I want people to more than flick through my pictures on their cell while they are in line to get coffee. I know that this happens but I want a format that can do more if I want it to.The key to this  all is understanding what you want to share and how you want to share it. If you think about it you will find you can be successful at it.