Five tips to get started on Google Plus as photographers.
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The hit of the summer Social media is growing and developing spectacularly. google-plusGoogle’s new social network, is also running as a excellent choice for photographers. Not only professionals who now have a new promotion channel, but also for those fans who consider their presence on social networks and seek to publicize their captures, share, learn and experiment.
Google Plus is still young, but it already has many users and there are still many who are too lazy to enter a new medium. Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, 550px, photoblogs,… and now Google+. Luckily he has multiple choices and as photographers you can get an excellent match. Let’s review five tips for those who want to get started and dive into Google Plus.
1. Google+, first things first: rights and licenses
Before launching to publish our images in a new medium, the first thing is know the conditions and rights. This way we will be sure if Google Plus is for us or not.
In this there are discussions for all tastes, although it should be noted that the team of the new social network has learned from past mistakes, criticism of the competition and, although the license of use warns us that Google will be able to use all the content that make it public, at least users will always keep the copyright of your images.
The ideal would be to let each user decide what to do or not with the content they publish. Grant or not permission to Google as we choose. This is not possible, although it should not alarm us either if our true objective is to share. As it is still a young medium, we will see how it evolves in this field. At the moment, as I say, it has had an excellent general reception and also among the photographic sector.
Taking care of privacy
On the other hand, our Google account allows us to configure the privacy of our photos and albums with great flexibility and options. So we decide if we want them to be private and only visible to us or share them and, in this case, with whom we want to do it, through the circles.
In any case, nothing better than configuring our profile in Google well and also get the most out of it gathering all the links and information that interests us to let us know. In addition to adding up to five images that will be shown on our profile, so we have to choose what we want to show well.
3. Photos on Google+: basic options
Some basic but not negligible options that this new service offers us is the labelled of photos, option to edit them (yes, in a very elementary way), add titles and keywords, edit exif data and a free storage capacity of 1 GB but expandable at very affordable prices (much more than even Flickr):
- 5 dollars per year (3.5 euros) for 20 GB
- 20 dollars per year (14 euros) for 80 GB
- 200 dollars per year (140 euros) for 200GB
And for greater capacity, you can consult the rest of the prices and options of Google Storage.
Let’s keep in mind that Picasa, although it was a popular service, it was excessively elementary and with few possibilities. Now, once it is integrated into Google+ and it will be reconverted into Google Photoswith the advantages and characteristics that we are commenting on (and those that are yet to come), is postulated as a comfortable, extensive and above all essential option to share photographs, connect with other photographers and also with clients.
In addition, to share our photos we have options with the integration of Google Plus for mobile devices. We can take photos with the application and they are automatically storedregardless of whether we later want to share them in other media or not.
And we can’t forget that it allows us to display our images at a width of up to 2048 pixels and videos of up to 15 minutes.
Let us not forget that the key to a social network is precisely connect with other users. Let’s make good use of Google Plus from the point of view of photography and invite other photographers, amateurs, interested parties to join us and so we can create circles where to share interests, information, as well as photos.
Of course, talking and participating is the best way to improve our presence, to make ourselves known and receive a response. From my still brief experience, I can confirm that much more interesting and lengthy conversations take place than in other media. At least when it comes to photography.
In addition, the possibilities offered by Google Plus circles are really easy, immediate and customizable, the way of sharing and connecting with other users.
5. Look for inspiration
With a number around 25 million users in such a short time of existence, finding other photographers is very easy. It is highly recommended, as it is in other more specific media such as Flickr, 500px or Instagram, keep track of other photographersboth professionals and amateurs to see how they share, to see their work and talk with them, share and, always, learn.
To start with, nothing better than breaking the ice, so here are some lists of photographers to follow:
To find the closest ones, we can do a search or check among circles of acquaintances and affinities.
Can you help us prepare a list of Spanish photographers? Share with us the ones you know and consider most interesting.
In SamaGame Social Media | Google+ in depth
Photo | west.m
