Setup a Community Photo Email Address with Twitter & Flickr

Here are 4 steps on how to set up an email address a group can use to email and text photos to a community pool.

Photos can automagicly be sent to a Twitter account, Flickr, and your website.

This is free as long as you don’t need a custom email address like pic@yoursite.com or you won’t be collecting more than around 500 photos a month.

Here are some good uses for this crowdsourcing method:

• Weddings: Put an email address at tables and capture moments not caught by the photographer.
• Twitter Groups: Enhance groups using retweetbots such as the PredsFans and give your photos a central location.
• Promote Events: Plan an epic Halloween party and ask users to submit how their costume is coming, or award a Twitter follower a prize for a specific photo during a social media campaign.
• Tech Events and Mixers: Make it easy for people to upload to your photo pool by giving them an email address at events like BarCamp, CS Mixer, and Geek Breakfast. Configure Flickr to add your hashtag to uploads.
• Concert: Engage concert goers by allowing them to upload photos of the show and give them a reason to visit your website.

1. Setup a Twitter account.

Remain logged once you sign up or login if you already have one so you can integrate your Twitter account with Flickr.

2. Setup a Flickr account.

1. If you are setting up a new account you will need to setup a free Yahoo account if you don’t already have one. Just follow the steps after clicking the Sign Up button at the bottom, right.
2. After logging into Flickr, pick your screen name.

3. Integrate your accounts.

1. In your account settings add a blog. Select “Twitter” as the type and click “Next.”
2. Click the “Go to Twitter to Authorize” button.
3. In the new window from Twitter click the “Allow” button.
4. Flickr will now direct you to a page with your “Flickr2Twitter upload-by-email address.”
   
   It looks something like this: pithyphrase2twitter@photos.flickr.com with “pithyphrase” being the unique phrase they give you.
   
   You can always find your “Flickr2Twitter upload-by-email address” in the email tab of your account settings.

4. Setup your email alias

1. Gmail
   1. Setup a new account by clicking the “Create an account” button at the bottom, right.
   2. Select a email address related to your photo pool.
   3. In the “settings” area, click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
   4. Select “Forward a copy of incoming mail to…”
   5. Paste in your “Flickr2Twitter upload-by-email address” in the “email address” field.
   6. Click “Save Changes.”
      
      
      
2. Custom Email
   1. If you want to use an email address with your current website, contact your mail administrator to see if a custom alias can be created and if they have instructions on how to do so.
   2. If you want to create a custom email address such as pic@yoursite.com with a website that doesn’t exist yet, you will first need a website domain name. You can purchase a .com domain name from many places. For instance Go Daddy sells them for about $11/yr and they include a free mailbox in which you can setup email forwarding. Check to make sure this offer still applies if you decide to buy a domain name.

TIP: It is a good idea to add additional aliases if you can for common misspellings such as pic, pics, photo, photos, picture, pictures, pix, pix, etc.

---

How can I add the photos to my website?

One of the easiest ways is to insert a Flickr slideshow on your website or blog.

How do captions work?

Via email the subject of the email becomes the Twitter text and the Flickr title. The body of the message becomes the Flickr description.

Via text “Multimedia Message” becomes the Twitter text and the Flickr title. The text message becomes the Flickr description.

So encourage email.

How many photos can the group upload?

Your group will be able to submit over 500 photos a month. This is based on average camera phone quality and the space currently allotted by Flickr’s free account. If you need more space, a Flickr pro account is $24.95/yr.

How long do uploads take?

When setting things up for the first time, my tests were delayed by 2 hours. Now that everything is setup, uploads take about 30 seconds to a minute for me. It’s a good idea to let people know they should allow 5-10 minutes for their uploads so they don’t try to upload over and over and create duplicates.

How stable is this solution?

Keep in mind this solution relies on Twitter, Flickr, their API’s, and your email provider to all be working properly at the same time. Also, Twitter’s integration with Flickr is currently in beta, so they may change aspects of this service in the future.