Social Media Commerce: Use Photos On Flickr for Free

By Marsha Collier from Social Media Commerce For Dummies

Using photos on your social media updates or on your website is a great way to enliven them. You might have a specific image in mind to use, but don’t have the time or ability to shoot it yourself. Luckily, many photographers allow others to use their work on blogs or for other commercial uses.

If the image has a Creative Commons license that allows commercial use, you can use the image on your site for free. To find images on Flickr that you can use at no cost, follow these steps:

Sign in to Flickr with your Flickr or Yahoo! ID.

You can also sign in with a Google ID or a Facebook ID.
In the Flickr search box, type the name of the item for which you are searching. Click Search.

You will retrieve hundreds of photos matching your query.
Click the Advanced Search link, which appears to the right of the search box.

At the bottom of the resulting page is an option to find photos with a Creative Commons license.
Select the Only Search with Creative Commons option, and then select the Find Content to Use Commercially option. Click Search.
On the search results page, find a photo that interests you, and then click that photo.
Click the license, which appears to the right of the photo.

The Creative Commons license appears, as shown in the figure, outlining the legal rights for photo usage (generally you have to credit the photographer).
If the terms look good, click the Share menu to see your options for downloading, sharing, and embedding, as shown in the figure.