Josiah Mackenzie, hotel marketing pro, blew my mind once again with his exhaustive and insightful advice in using Flickr for Hotels.  His social media plan and help is just…. wow.  Thanks sir.  Some of his thoughts will be in the social media bible, whenever someone has enough time to sit down and write one (even though it seems to change second to second).  Whatever the case, his work always gets me thinking.  This time it brought me back to the vague, somewhat uneasy marriage of business and flickr.

Something people don’t seem to want to talk about, or at least isn’t brought up too often in regards to Flickr, is their famously nebulous Flickr TOS & Yahoo Terms of Service.  I have spoken to some industry professionals about it, and am confident these are quiet concerns people keep to themselves and the kitchen table at 3am.  A few have approached it, as well as there being spirited conversations, involving multiple staff, on Flickr itself.  Just like Yelp’s notoriously vague behind the scene manipulations, people have cried foul to the way Flickr chooses to manage/delete accounts, with seemingly random application of it’s TOS.  What’s more, it seems people aren’t confident in how to use it.  Even the staff have varying viewpoints and opinions on the matter.  At least one majour hotel flag and brand that uses Flickr relentlessly (and incredibly effectively) says he goes to bed at night thinking he will wake up and the accounts will be deleted. Other groups, like craft makers, are completely lost as to what “commercial purposes” means, and are getting frustrated with errant deletion of their groups.

The reason this concerns me is because I see the most avid users of flickr talk about it being “spam central”, and people being incredibly aware that brands are *really* starting to penetrate that site.  The above linked article is from a year ago, but the conversation is incredibly relevant.  If you are still unsure, try searching “flickr” and “TOS” on Twitter Search; that is pretty overwhelming that there is a big question looming.  As Flickr hears more from the community about brand spam, when will they take those famously vague words, “Flickr is for personal use only. If we find you selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account.” into account?  When might they start looking at a brand and suggesting it is creating less of a “story”,  and creating more of what their users don’t want.

People do not want their photo sharing site to turn into a business marketplace.  It is obvious by the discussions happening about “commerce and flickr”, and most apparent with commentary on flickr group discussions about Etsy, and people using Flickr to catalogue their offerings.  That is an incredible no no, apparently.  But that certainly draws our line a bit closer and more precarious, as we don’t *really* know what hotel’s photo sharing is about.  Can anyone define that?  We do know that “Flickereeno’s” (Flickr Staff) are incredibly helpful and accessible, compared with some other social sites.  They responded inside some of the above linked threads, as well as directly to people’s earnest questions.

These are some important problems to resolve in regards to exactly what space a hotel operates in, on flickr.  Their TOS expressively forbids businesses for using it, in any way, for commercial purposes. This includes etsy people using flickr to host a catalogue, or private, personal businesses owned by individuals who are using flickr in any way for their biz. This is complex, because they are obviously lenient, and cannot possibly have omnipresent control, but they have the right to clamp down any time they wish.

In a recent meeting, we met with Flickr’s GM on an unrelated note but asked him about brands and photos, *SPECIFICALLY* in regards to hotels.  His paraphrased words are as follows:

“We typically are fine with a collection of images that tells a story”, but they are down on direct advertising.

I doubt they will forbid relevant or useful brands from existing, but there is a chance in the future that they will crackdown.  Until the TOS are cleaned up to expressively permit a hotel from existing on Flickr, their right will be to delete your account without warning or justification. As of now, their TOS suggest that they *will* do this at some point in the future, in that a hotel is not a person using it for personal reasons.

I guess the point is that it is a relevant and important aspect of a hotel social media optimizer’s job.  Use it effectively and it can be an incredible tool to help your hotel.  If you aren’t sure how, you can find interesting articles like this about marketing and Flickr, or simply use Josiah’s incredible work.  You will miss out if you aren’t part of this, and it can really help your overall social media program.

At least for now.

About Michael

One Response to “Flickr and the nebulous TOS.”

  1. Josiah Mackenzie

    Michael – first off, thanks for the link and your kind comments.

    I really appreciate how you go further and find the story behind the story. Interesting links. Beyond somewhat ambiguous TOS, I think this is an issue that applies to the broader social media community: are corporate entities welcome to take part in what started as a personal network?

    Instead of dumping a bunch of photos into Flickr and leaving, I feel the most effective thing a hotel can do there is to encourage & facilitate photo sharing around their brand. For example by creating a group of guest photos, they can provide a central access point for what would otherwise be a scattered (and incomplete) collection of images.

    This is definitely something to consider, so again, thanks for your insights and bringing this to my attention.

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