Flickr is an online photo management and sharing application--it's a way to get your photos to the people who matter to you most, whether that be a potential client interested in your landscape services or the fans of your Facebook Page.

There are seven very practical reasons why green industry professionals should consider putting pictures of their work on Flickr.

1. Organize the images of your work

Flickr allows you to organize your photos in a very logical way using what are called "Collections" and "Sets". Sets are a grouping of individual photos, while Collections are a grouping of Sets.

Personally, I create Sets for each of my landscape projects which contain numerous images of the project. These Sets are contained in the Collection titled "My Projects". This is illustrated in the screen captures below:

This screen capture shows my Collection titled "My Projects". This Collection consists of eight unique Sets of photographs. You can see that there is space to add an extensive description of your Collection as well as the ability to add a hyperlink to your website or blog.

This screen capture shows my Set of photos from my Grand Valley State University project. Each photo can be viewed by clicking on the thumbnail image. A description of the Set can be included.

You could also create a Collection titled "Project Types" which could include Sets titled "Patios", "Planting Combinations", "Front Entry's", etc. The objective is to give people the option to view your work by project and by project type.

This logical way of organizing your photos also makes it easy on yourself when you need to locate a specific photo (see #3 below).

2. Flickr is easy to update

Many of you have a company website with a portfolio page that features images of your work, but how often is this page updated?

Flickr serves as the perfect complement to a traditional website's portfolio because of the ease of use. Visit a job site, snap a few pictures, and within minutes it is possible to have your images online. Using Flickr, you will always have a fresh and updated portfolio on the Internet (see #5 below for why this is important).

This screen capture shows how you can easily add Titles, Descriptions and Tags to your photos. Using Tags enables you to search for photos later.

3. Searchability

Upon uploading a photo, or group of photos, to Flickr, you can add "Tags" which are keywords that identify elements in the picture or characteristics of the image.

If you make a habit of tagging all of your photos as you upload them, you will be able to quickly and easily locate individual pictures as well as groups of pictures. This is extremely handy for me. For instance, if a potential client is interested in having me design a new terrace for their home, I can quickly locate all of my pictures with the "Terrace" tag and email the URL to my prospect. This works even better on site using a smart phone.

4. Accessibility

Speaking of smart phones, because your photographs are "in the cloud" (stored online), they are accessible from any device with an Internet connection. Wherever you take your laptop, smartphone, or tablet, you will have access to your images. This is important because you never know when you will want to show someone an example of your work.

Another reason to upload your photos to Flickr is so that they are all stored in one place. If you use multiple computers, like I do, keeping track of where your photographs are located can be a problem. What computer did I save that picture on again?

5. Sharing your photographs

Remember not long ago when you had to email photos to people in order to share? With large file sizes you were limited to the number of pictures you could send. Using Flickr, instead of sending large files, you can email a URL where the pictures can be viewed. I've found this to be useful when I've needed to share photos with clients, the media, and other professionals I may be collaborating with.

If you are an active social media user, Flickr makes it incredibly simple to share photos with your online friends and followers. You can show off your work and portfolio using my "Trickle Approach" by posting your Flickr images to your blog, Facebook Page or Twitter stream. With a smart phone or tablet, it's even easier to share your images in real-time.

Using the Flickr "Slideshow" application is an effective and professional way to showcase a collection of photos on your blog or Facebook Page. See the example below.

6. Search Engine Optimization

Let's not forget that Google and Bing both index and list images in their search rankings. Your images can appear high in the image search results if you add the necessary information to each of your photos--Title, Description and Tags. You may also want to add a watermark to your images for more brand awareness. In my experience, photos hosted with Flickr, who is owned by Yahoo, appear much higher in the Yahoo and Bing image search results compared to Google.

I certainly don't suggest trying to optimize every single picture you add to Flickr in hopes of landing on page one of Yahoo, but spending a small amount of time on this task can make a difference. Below is a screen capture showing an example of how I did this with one of my photos. I've optimized this photo for the keywords "Landscape Designer Holland, Michigan".

This shows how I have tried to optimize this image for the keyword phrase "Landscape Designer Holland, Michigan" by repeating these words in the Title, Description and Tags.

7. Save space on your hard drive

If you have hundreds or even thousands of photographs on your computer's hard drive, you may want to lighten the load by off loading some of those images to Flickr. Images can eat up a lot of hard drive space, especially if they are high resolution shots.

Recently I scanned all of my photographs from high school and college that I had lying around in photo albums. Instead of saving them to my hard drive where they would take up a huge amount of space, I simply uploaded all of them to my Flickr account.

Note: I use my Flickr account to organize both personal and "business" photos like many people do. Privacy settings allow you to control who is able to view which photos. No one will see my photos from high school anytime soon :-)

Now that I've made my case for using Flickr, I hope you will consider the benefits it may bring to your business as well.

Are you using Flickr or another photo sharing app? How do you use it in your business?