Lens4anEye

It just Goes to Show Ya, You Never Know Marketing efforts for any product or service can take off on a tangent at any time. Just when you think your efforts are not bearing fruit, there it is. So it is with my Lens4anEye profile. National Road Toll House I would post a ClickaSnap image link in my Facebook page and on some of the Groups in which I am a member. It would get a view or two here and there. Even by posting an image in one or other of the "related" ClickaSnap Facebook groups would get nary a view or comment. But then one day I pasted the link to my Braddock album in a Braddock, PA Facebook group and the members of that group rallied to the album and generated over 1000 collective views of 21 photos. It happened all in a 48 hour period before the listing aged down their page and out of view. I tried to do the same approach for my Pittsburgh album in Pittsburgh related groups with only minimal results. Other towns and album subject were likewise disappointi...

The Benefits of Link Shorteners Making your links more stylish and readable makes people more comfortable in clicking on them. A long cryptic URL is not inviting. It doesn’t confer any information about where it leads. https://bit.ly/BraddockAlbum says that the subject is “Braddock” and it’s an “Album”. The person looking at the link may not know if Braddock is a person, place or thing but the context of the link or the search can narrow the interpretation.   Likewise the word “Album” could be music or photos. Context will again give clues to its nature. When you create a short URL with Bitly  it points to 1 location forever. The second part is yours the /BraddockAlbum part is a unique identifier. For example on the ClickaSnap photo sharing platform file names and album names are not exclusive to until user. Actually, a subscriber can use the exact same title on any number of photos. That is not a wise idea but it works. Within CAS many subscribers may create an Album u...

  In Small Worlds even a few returning contacts can add up Working out how to reach new followers is key to a wide exposure of your content. A few factors help create that exposure.  Click this shortened link Bit.ly/BraddockAlbum The CAS supplied URL is long like this: https://www.clickasnap.com/profile/Lens4anEye/album/01GVVC8993TP2NWBR5FBB3V55G Make it simple. Long URLs are difficult to remember and are hard to manually type.  Use it often. Ideally every item in your portfolio should be marked with your identity. Your identity should be easy to remember. Even better if it can be spoken as a name or phrase.  Until ClickaSnap adds functionality features which make links easier to use, creating short URLs with shorteners such as Bitly.com makes it easier.  The CAS server system employs a URL format (https:// www.ClickaSnap.com/{profile- name}/photo/{a long cryptic string} to display a specific photo. The Bitly shortener can simplify that to https://bit.ly/{myph...

  SEO for Greater Image Exposure [ Lens4anEye ] Your SEO status is important for getting strangers to see your photography. Search Engine Optimization is the holy grail of online marketing.    SEO is something you can do yourself or pay someone to do for you. Promoters promise a lot of results if you pay up front for their work. It is easy for them to make claims and difficult for you to determine if they are worth the costs.   In short, if you are paying any amount to a promotion site to increase your ClickaSnap visibility, it will probably be too much. If someone charges $100 for SEO improvements you would need 14,285 paid-views (at the Uploads+ subscription) to break even. At the typical ratio of 40% conversion you would need to get 35417 total views. With 100 images each would need 354 views.    There are many things you can do yourself for no money if you put in your time. Facebook pages are free. Twitter accounts are free. Instagram, tu...

Soul Stirring In July 2006 I was making my periodic trip to Braddock, PA to document the changes in this dying community. Braddock was once a powerhouse of the American steel industry. Located along the Monongahela River just upstream from Pittsburgh it commanded entire valley and fed raw steel to other finishing plants on both banks of the river and both upstream and down.    Click for larger image The post-WWII employment was at about 5000 men.    They and their families constituted a large portion of the local population. Braddock was home to many more workers who toiled in the East Pittsburgh Westinghouse factory and the towns of Linhart, Rankin and Swissvale.  The town, officially the Borough of Braddock, contained a bustling retail and professional business district along Braddock Avenue.    When the steel industry failed regional employment plummeted. Urban mobility was once defined by the streetcar tracks and inter urban passenger...