SnapItTo.Me - A Photo Markletplace

[SnapItToMe]

Hello everyone,

I'm here to introduce a new photo marketplace start-up called SnapItTo.Me (SnapItTo.Me) Our website is founded by photography enthusiasts very much like the community members here at the forum. The website is focused on helping photographers of all skill level to find paying opportunities for their work while helping people seeking to buy photographs to acquire the photo they desire at a reasonable price.

We've just launched earlier this Monday and we're looking for users to engage in our website and provide feedback! You can find the direct link here: SnapItTo.Me

Currently we have two photo contests being held at the website. The rewards are $200 for the selected photo and the works of the top 20 photographer will also get featured in our front page!

So please help us by visiting our website and create a portfolio. Feel free to provide any feedback, question or concerns here at the forum and I'll try to address them in a timely manner.

Thank You!

SnapItTo.Me

 

[Eco]

Feedback:

1. The Browse section should show results based on location not by who has a first name that starts with an "A". Lol at the guy who lists his Iphone under gear....but then again I do the same as a joke.

2. Force people to fill out their profile.

3. But up some contests that end sooner to get the action going, waiting a month for a chance at $200 does not entice me to join.

Out of interest:

What are you doing to attract potential users of the people listed in the directory?

What is the goal behind the contest section? Is it a marketplace for people who are looking for certain types of photos?

"get the photo you want, when you want it, at the price you want." <-- Is this going to be like the design sites where people state what they are looking for and their price and people battle to get their business?

 

[SnapItToMe]

Hello Eco,

Thanks for the feedback. I will speak to the team regarding the the default sorting method for the photographers directory. Currently it is not required for people who register to fill out their location hence sorting it by location will have its limitations.

This also leads to your #2 feedback regarding the profile. It's always hard to figure out exactly what information should be mandatory when registering an account. The more mandatory fields there are, the less likely people are willing to go through the tedious process of signing up. This is something we'll likely to explore in the near future.

As for having more contests, that is something we're definitely working on. The website is less than a week old and we're trying to build up a larger user base. Once we have more photographers participating in the contests, I'm sure we'll start to see contests with shorter duration.

The website is still in beta, but our philosophy is to help photographers find paying opportunities while building up their portfolio. As of now it is a marketplace for people seeking specific photographs to put their requests and have the community of photographers to compete for the reward money. But in the long run our goal is to create a place where people looking to buy photographs will come to SnapItTo.Me to either post a paying gig (weddings, modeling, etc) or browse through the photographers directory to find a list of photographers that specializes in the field they're looking for at an hourly rate they can afford.

So to answer your question, we'll soon be running marketing campaigns geared towards attracting photo buyers to browse our photographers directory. We don't just want our photographers to seek out paying opportunities, we want those opportunities to seek out our photographers as well.

Let me know if you have any other questions!

 

[Eco]

Thanks for responding back. I spent some time looking at your site after I posted here last night and it firmed up what I questioned here. As a photographer asking myself "why should I join" I came up dry--- nothing enticed me. Putting myself in the shoes of someone shopping for images I came up dry as well. While several of the photographers on your site have good work digging through 9 (?) pages of half ass profiles, missing profiles or missing portfolios turned me off.

Even looking at the thread views (or lack of) here, photographers see (assumption) that the site is just another site.......nothing is there to create a buzz or incentive to sign up. IMHO, if you want pros to sign up hide those Iphone photographers and have your search results show the aces first.

Just a thought understanding how hard it is to start up websites on a small budget..... "sign up now with a complete profile and gallery and one of your images will be featured on our home page". <--a semi mod flash plug in set at one image a second could take care of this without a ton of bandwidth usage for a while until you have 100's of complete profiles. Everyone wants their work showcased on the home page of a .ME domain (not kidding I own $$$$ of .ME domains).

Once again, good luck.

 

[SnapItToMe]

Hi Eco,

Your feedbacks have been the most constructive ones so far across various forums. It seems to me that most of your concerns is content related (portfolios, photographers directory, contests, etc). This is something we're definitely working on as one of our top priorities.

I do like the idea of featuring people's work on the front page as an incentive to filling out their profile and uploading a portfolio. Or we just need to implement ways to encourage users to have a complete profile with portfolios.

But I do agree with you though, despite our current limited content, we should organize our content in the most presentable format. I'll see what I can do regarding those iPhone photographers.

Once again thanks for your feedback, this information is extremely valuable and helpful!

 

[SnapItToMe]

Hi Eco,

Once again thanks for your feedback. We made changes to our photographer directory so now it will only display photographers who have uploaded a minimum number of photos to their portfolio. So now instead of seeing every single account, you'll only see actual photographers. In regards to the contest duration, you can always check back regularly and see the contests that are ending soon! We just finished 3 contests in the past week with some contests that had less than 100 submissions!

We'll be launching more contests in the next few days so stay tuned!