Flickr stats on the rise.....

I have to admit that I do look at the statistics produced by Flickr for my photostream rather more often than I should, but as I have said before on this blog, there is something strangely addictive about the number of views or favourites you get on the latest upload.

Since I started to use Flickr on a regular basis I have been fortunate enough to have four properties selected for 'Explore' to date. I recognise that this is a tiny number compared to other photographers who have many more followers than I do and have been subscribers for several years.

I am all too aware that being on 'Explore' has a significant effect on the number of people who click through to view the photo. I have found that in the first 24 hours after the photo has been uploaded, one in ten views will lead to the image being marked as a favourite or a comment is made. As a consequence of this increase in traffic, the graph will peak at a much higher level than is usual on a typical day. On a typical day a total of between 100 to 150 'view counts' would be average, so when I checked the stats early one morning this week, I was rather shocked to find they were over the 500 mark and rapidly rising. I had not uploaded anything the night before which could have been selected for Explore. In fact the image which was attracting all the interest was 'Lone Sheep', which I uploaded back in February. How strange I thought. What could explain all the interest in this one photo?

By the end of the day the total view count was well over 2,500 and the same thing repeated itself the next day. I soon found out that there was a very simple reason for the huge increase in the volume of traffic to my photostream. "Lone Sheep' had been selected by Flickr to feature in their own Flickr Blog on a feature called Monochromatic Landscapes. There is only one blog entry each day and this particular entry only featured five photographs. Given the number of black and white landscapes on Flickr; there must be millions and millions; to have an image of mine selected rather felt like winning the lottery, sadly without the prize money of course! Still all publicity is good publicity, so I am definitely not complaining.

Click here for the link to the Flicker Blog Entry - Monochromatic Landscapes - which was published on the 23rd April 2013.

Below is the rather dramatic effect it had to my stats over a two day period .

2,783 per day and rising......

....and finally the image which has caused all the fuss.

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