Using Flickr as an Affiliate

Posted by Shawn Collins on November 11th, 2008 | 20 Comments

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I uploaded a short video of my kids playing the Wii the other day on Flickr, and I noticed that I could use HTML in the description of the video.

So a lightbulb went off – I figured this could be an opportunity to upload pictures and videos that are tagged well, along with a good title and description with an affiliate link included.

I titled the video “Nintendo Wii Outdoor Challenge,” which is the name of the game they were playing. And then I created an Amazon affiliate link to the game in the description.

A couple days later, the video has hundreds of views and dozens of clicks for the affiliate link.

Now, I am not sure how popular this game is with the Wii, but I think this could be an interesting method to market affiliate links if you ride the trends with relevant content leading to Christmas.

Think of the prospect of breaking into Google Universal Search results with your Flickr action. Also, if you do this, you can tie it to Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, etc.

Note to the link spammers, the Flickr links are nofollow.

Some interesting potential.

Posted in Affiliate News, Affiliate Tips

On November 11 @ 5:49 pm Chris Garner said

Have you made an product sales from the affiliate link?
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On November 11 @ 6:07 pm Mark A. said

Dude, that's on my Amazon wish list! My kids are a little older than yours. I was considering buying this or the Wii Fit. Great idea with the Amazon links. I wish their cookie was more than 24 hours.
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On November 11 @ 6:08 pm toddfarmer said

Think we could sell any Rock Band games with this video of my son and his friend? (taken in our house in Tampa, when his little girlfriend from Michigan was visiting– it's funny, and although the lyrics are “odd”, they have no idea what it means!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88xvgk0Ml-0&feat...
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On November 11 @ 6:14 pm Think Like An SOB said

Thanks Shawn, awesome idea.
Gonna give it a shot!
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On November 11 @ 8:42 pm Joe Garraffo said

Shawn,

I found this initially from your tweet. I thought this was a fantastic idea. I have shown this video to a few people, not in the industry and it helped them understand Affiliate Marketing more. This makes so much sense and is such a great (non-intrusive) way to send links to your social networking friends.
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On November 12 @ 12:15 am Shawn Collins said

Not so far – but I just put it up.
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On November 12 @ 12:18 am Shawn Collins said

Too much angst, but I liked the lint roller.
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On November 12 @ 5:04 am purple said

This is a great angle, I use flickr alot but not tried video and links

Nice One
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On November 12 @ 7:21 am Tim_Jones said

This is a really cool idea, Shawn! I just went and added some links to my own Flickr account to see how it goes. I also added links to my blog, hoping to bring in some traffic through Flickr. Thanks for the tip!
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On November 14 @ 9:49 am tinksmagic said

Do you think Flickr will allow this? I mean, I haven't read their TOS, but as great as an idea as it is, they'll probably shoot it down once they realize they aren't the ones profiting from it and will probably stick their own links in once they catch on.
Going to explore it though!!
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On November 14 @ 9:57 am Shawn Collins said

I looked at the terms for my Flickr Pro account at http://www.flickr.com/atos/pro/ and do not see anything that addresses the use of links in descriptions.

I am not sure if this is an option for people with free accounts, but the pro account costs $24.95 a year.
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On November 14 @ 11:49 am tinksmagic said

Do you think Flickr will allow this? I mean, I haven't read their TOS, but as great as an idea as it is, they'll probably shoot it down once they realize they aren't the ones profiting from it and will probably stick their own links in once they catch on.
Going to explore it though!!
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On November 14 @ 11:57 am Shawn Collins said

I looked at the terms for my Flickr Pro account at http://www.flickr.com/atos/pro/ and do not see anything that addresses the use of links in descriptions.

I am not sure if this is an option for people with free accounts, but the pro account costs $24.95 a year.
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On November 18 @ 12:10 pm ProNetBusiness.com said

Excellent idea. Link, link, link then link again.
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On November 19 @ 11:34 pm Bob said

Great idea. Pretty much place where you have a profile, have discussions, or share your thoughts you should throw up an affiliate link – as long as your primary objective is still to share. You're probably not going to make mega bucks and you don't want to be obviously spammy.

The nice thing about Flickr is that the images and videos you share stay around for a loooong time. So you may get clicks (and if lucky a conversion) way after you post.
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On December 1 @ 8:40 am Codrut @ Start a Blog said

Man, when folks would realize that these tactics are not going to work as it's impossible you'll target folks who want to buy something with pictures!
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On December 4 @ 8:39 am Missy Ward said

My aunt let me know that my Oakley Thump and Keurig B70 Youtube videos showed up in the first few results on Google (http://cli.gs/OakleyThump and http://cli.gs/Keurig) and it was cool to see the html link in the description.

I know that back when I uploaded these videos, html links didn't work in Youtube and I had hoped that people would simply type in the Weviews.tv URL or the redirect in the videos.

I guess it's time to go back and update the URL in the description to make them more relevant to the products
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