In 1923, Robert Woodruff took the helm of effervescent beverage company called Coca-Cola. You might have heard of it…

We have a special place in our hearts for the brown bubbly here at PhotoShelter, and we have Mr. Woodruff to thank. Woodruff declared as his goal to make Coca-Cola within “arms reach of desire, across the globe” and over 60 years he led the dramatic expansion of Coke into the beverage titan we know today. 

What lesson can photographers take from Coke, especially in this hyper-connected, blogged, tweeted, facebooked, Googled and backlinked marketplace we’re now operating in? Its simple. To succeed, you need to put your images “in arms reach of desire, across the globe” just like Coke did.

Having a website and expecting new clients to stumble upon it simply isn’t enough today. The old marketing methods won’t suffice. You need to take advantage of productive ways to increase your “surface area” across the Internet, and give potential clients every opportunity to find you on their terms and amongst the sites they visit. Today, we’re partnering with PicScout to provide photographers access to yet another powerful feature that’s designed to help get your photography in front of potential buyers and drive more sales of your work.

PicScout has pioneered a digital fingerprinting technology called PicScout ImageIRC™ (index, registry and connection platform).  Image buyers and creative pros who use PicScout’s ImageExchange™ browser add-on see an (i) icon on every fingerprinted image, anywhere it resides online. Anytime a potential buyer is perusing blogs and social networks, news sites, and even search engine results and encounters an image fingerprinted by PicScout, they see the (i), can click for more information, and click to your website to immediately license or purchase the image. Starting today, 8 million images that are priced for online sales by PhotoShelter photographers will begin the fingerprinting process through PicScout. PicScout makes image buyers happy because the search for new photography that’s ready to license is easier than ever. ImageExchange gives them a path to buy it directly from the content creator on PhotoShelter.  PicScout makes photographers (and other visual artists) really happy too, because they now have a new way to attract new buyers, regardless of where their content may reside online.

Let me break it down.

• You upload images to PhotoShelter and price them for prints, products, royalty-free, rights-managed or personal use.
• PicScout fingerprints these priced images and builds their database
• When an image buyer with the ImageExchange add-on see an image anywhere on the Internet that matches a fingerprint in the PicScout database, a little “i” icon will appear in the upper right corner. This is the indication that it’s available for purchase/licensing, and also free advertising for you.
• When the buyer clicks the “i”, a popup window will display some info about the image including a link to your PhotoShelter website where they can license it directly from you.

Plus, important attribution and copyright ownership information will always stay with the image. What’s really exciting is that PicScout has been providing this technology to some of the world’s largest image libraries – and it is now available through PhotoShelter to benefit individual photographers.

We’re looking at this initial rollout as Phase 1 – designed to test out the concept, build momentum, and obtain feedback.  During this phase, PicScout has waived any transaction fees on sales our photographers may derive from the system.  After Phase 1, we’ll announce the financial terms and photographers may decide to participate or opt-out.  During subsequent phases, we will also expand services to include PicScout’s ImageTracker product.

The key benefit for photographers is that you don’t have to do anything else. If you’re already using PhotoShelter to sell photography via your website, you now have yet another powerful tool working on your behalf with the potential to drive unsolicited, yet highly qualified buyer traffic to your website.  For a long time, we’ve been banging pots and pans to help wake photographers up to the changing role of your website.  Your website is no longer good enough if it just shows pretty pictures.  It needs to be a tool for growing your business – by helping attract clients, giving them opportunities to engage with your content, enabling them buy from you directly online, and making their lives easier with powerful features that help get their job done fast.        

Now more than ever, PhotoShelter is proving to be the most powerful way for serious photographers to host their images, market their photography, and grow their business.  On top of the SEO tools and resources we provide, our social media marketing features, and the industry’s most robust e-commerce engine – we now have the help of PicScout to put your images “within arms reach of desire” across the internet.  PicScout is an innovator and we’re really excited to have them as a partner.

Please join myself and PicScout CEO Offir Gutelzon for a webinar on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 3 PM EST to discuss the complete details of the new partnership, including rollout timing and future plans. Register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/203535395

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