Today's guest post is by Nikki Peters, the community support manager for MarketMeSuite, the social media marketing dashboard you can use for free.

Publishing photos online is the new way of marketing your business, brand and even yourself and your own interests. Everyone can read a tweet or Facebook update and think nothing more of it, but to see a photo really does help you increase online engagement. As a professional photographer, it's vital that you get your photos out to your audience and even going viral. This article examines why photo sharing via social media can really help increase your online reputation and gain you a significant following. Here are 4 tools to help facilitate interaction and sharing of your photos.

1- MarketMeSuite – Photo Sharing From A Dashboard

MarketMeSuite, is a free Social Media Dashboard which has a Photo sharing feature called Photo.Me. This is excellent for those of you who like to upload and publish photos to all your accounts as it allows you to do so all in one place. Also, whenever you publish a photo via MarketMeSuite, it is automatically added to the official Phto.Me web page so anyone and everyone can see it. Every time someone visits the website itself, they see the images, and discover new Twitter accounts, people and businesses. It's a great way to get your photos seen, not just on your own Twitter/Facebook and Linkedin walls, but shared over a collective body of images where people can sit and browse at their own leisure and explore the photos origins.

Tips And Tricks For Using MarketMeSuite

Using MarketMeSuite's “Send To All” feature means you get to send your photo to your Twitter, Facebook profile, Facebook pages and groups and Linked.in in one swift swoop. Just check off the accounts you want your photo to be sent to and a link will be sent to all of them at the same time so you save time publishing your images to your audience. You have the ability to visit that photo at any time, delete it, see how many views it's had and grab the URL all from the MarketMeSuite app itself so you have everything you could possibly need at your finger tips to make sure that image is getting seen and by how many people.

2- Instagram – Photo Sharing From Your iPhone

Everyone with an iPhone is playing with Instagram, and why not, it's free and offers some pretty amazing photo effects that are easy and quick to apply. No fiddling, no adjustment, you pick the effect and they do immediately! If you are on the go and want to edit your images, Instagram offers you the ability to pick the desired photo effect and publish it to your audience quickly and whilst on the go! If you snap a great image and want to share it with your audience, there really is no better or more simple way. You can also post it to Facebook, Twitter and Flickr meaning it reaches the widest audience.

Tips And Tricks For Using Instagram

There is a common misconception that Instagram is for phones only. There is in fact, a cheats way of getting your photos on to it from your professional camera. All you have to do is upload professional quality photos using Dropbox and you can then pull them from your iPhone directly onto Instagram, and since it's a great network for sharing photos a lot of photographs and businesses alike are doing this. This way you don't have to sacrifice quality and pixels. Also, a Flickr plugin on your website can showcase all your photographs and you can hook it up to your iPhone to automatically share from Instagram.

3- Flickr – Photo Sharing On Your Blog

Flickr is arguably one of the worlds biggest photo sharing websites, it's certainly one of the more popular ones which is why it is a must for professional photographers. What better place to meet others with the same passion as you and share ideas and thoughts about it? With millions of people with an account, you are in good company! Upload your images and they can be seen under your username. Again you can structure your photos into albums so your work is neat and well organized so your audience can easily find what they like.

Tips And Tricks For Using Flickr

Flickr allows you to add plugins to your websites and blogs so you can advertise your photos on your website making marketing and access to your images easier than ever! Having content on your website gives people an immediate knowledge of your work and style so catches their interest. It also gives you the ability to let others use your images in their “Creative Commons” section meaning people can use and interact with your work so it gets seen by even more people. It's also a good idea to use tags so your photos can be searched for easily and you get a wider result of people looking at your work.

4- Facebook – The Viral Photo Share

It's so obvious it's easy to over look it. Facebook is the worlds biggest social network and when you add pages and profiles and gain a good following, it's a great way of easily uploading and sharing your photos. Whether you add them to a particular structured photo album or to a wall or share them individually, Facebook gets your photos to the masses. All it takes is one photo to be “Liked”, “shared” or linked out and you suddenly get a in-tune and appreciative audience.

Tips And Tricks For Using Facebook

With Facebook, you have so many options as to how you want to publish your photos and who can see them. Bulk load your images into content albums or upload them one by one, you have a limitless amount you can add and upload. The biggest tip with Facebook, is to publish photos that encourage your audience to get your photo's seen by liking and sharing. That's the best and most organic way of going viral as people trust their friend's “likes” and suggestions.

So Why Should You Use Any Of These Tools?

Words can't fully explain a sight, a time, a moment like a photo can. Not only can they inspire, they can help facilitate passive following. Your photos work for you even when you're not online engaging and trying to convert customers. Whether it's a photo of the office dog, of a new product for your business, or even just a beautiful photo, you have the internet at your fingers tips which helps you make sure they are seen and gain your exposure in your profession.

Which of the above tools do you use and why? Have you found clients or people interested in licensing your images because of these social media applications? Let us know below!