Group: Promoting ipernity

In my view one possible way to win new ipernity users could be to approach photo clubs and explain them the advantages of ipernity. I do not only think about single members of photos clubs, who register for a basic or standard account. Ipernity also offers a lot of functionality that can help to organise a photo club:

- Photo clubs might register for a standard account that serves organisational purposes for the photo club.
- For example ipernity allows to upload various types of documents, not only photos. Therefore a photo club could use ipernity to make all kinds of documents available to its members (e.g. member lists, minutes of annual meetings, information about club activities, and of course photos about the club life). Thanks to privacy settings such documents can be kept confidential for club members where necessary or reasonable.
- For internal discussions and internal photo sharing purposes a photo club may create a private group only for members of the photo club. This allows well structured discussions among club members.
- By creating a spearate club account and a private club group ipernity could becom the "online home" of a photo club.
- Members of a photo club might at first register for a guest account. This already would allow them to access private content of the club account or of a private group and to upload a limited amount of own photos. Once they get accustomed to the use of ipernity the might desire to use it on a larger scale. Ultimately a larger number of photo club members could register for a basic or standard account.

What is necessary to make the described scenario happen?

1. At first it would be necessary to find contact persons of photo clubs. Some of us might already know certain photo clubs. We also could try to find contact persons via search in the web or on other photo sharing sites. As far as I know, for example fotocommunity offers a list of photo clubs.

2. Then we need to apporach the contact persons. For this purpose we could develop sample texts in this group, which may be used to introduce ipernity to photo clubs. So all of us who want to help making photo clubs aware of ipernity don't have to invent the wheel again. We should as well emphasize the possible use of ipernity for the organisation of a photo club as the benefits for the individual member of a photo club who registers for basic or standard account.

3. If contact persons of photo clubs react and have questions it is important that we answer as soon as possible so that they feel that they are welcome in our community. If photo clubs register for a free trial we need to help them as well as possible such that the free trial becomes a success. Especially at the beginning we should offer them extensive personal advise in order to help them to understand and use all features of ipernity.

From what Guido has suggested, I also saw this possibility when the virus struck and our photo club meetings were halted. I had approached our club secretary suggesting we could continue our clubs activities using the Ipernity platform to host the activities completely in private. At that time our club was using Dropbox at an extortionate premium per annum and all we could do was upload our projects without being able to comment or communicate with other members.
The secretary was very interested in the idea and so I worked on a plan using ipernity to run all the activities and showcase our club members uploads completely in a private group if they so wished and with another we tried and tested the plan which worked as expected.
What failed was the club did not want to pay a membership which would be standard in order to host the group and wanted me to use my account for this and the rest of the club membership would go with free accounts. Another member of the club found a way of hosting a file on Google photos which members could upload to for free but without all the extras that Ipernity offers.
I don't think I would want to be responsible for introducing 25+ members wanting free accounts to be supported by our own club membership.

Dear HappySnapper,

if your photo club booked one standard account (separate from your personal account) and all other members of the photo club became free members, in my view that might still be better than no additional standard account at all. The limits for guest accounts are very low. Maybe even more important: Once every member has a guest account some members might develop the desire to use the full functionality of ipernity. If ultimately only two or three more members signed up for a basic or standard account that would be great.

Maybe Bernhard can write what he thinks about it. Of course we have to take care that there are not too many guest accounts in the future. But in my view we could give it a try if your photoclub at least books one additional standard account. If all other members book a free guest account we might try to win some of them as paying members by some kind of targeted campaign.

But if your club even doesn't want to pay for a single account for the whole photo club, I am a little bit speechless as for 25+ members the cost for one standard account equals less than 2 Euro per year per member. Have you told them that ipernity is no profit oriented company but an online photo club owned by its members that doesn't sell ads and doesn't sell its user's data? Somebody must pay the bill.

They also should know that as an ipernity member the club respective the person who signs up for the club account can vote at the yearly general assembly and has a say with respect to the future of ipernity. Or in other words: If your club signed up for an additional standard account it would become part of a worldwide non-profit photo community with an own website that offers a very unique functionality. Isn't that worth 2 Euro per year for each member?

Thank you Guido, My Photo group is part of the U3A (University Of the third age) You may have heard of them they are a worldwide organization for senior citizens, no doubt there is one near you. Many have Photo groups within their activities and probably an Ideal marketing target for Ipernity. Two problems came to me, The first being that our members have already paid an annual fee to be a member of U3A about 27 Euro so a second fee might be difficult to find for some members and the second point it was suggested that members did not know enough about Ipernity to Join. I was invited to give an introduction to Ipernity at the next groups meeting but as we all know because of Covid and social distancing restrictions no meetings can take place.

Someone suggested preparing brief but fairly comprehensive leaflets detailing Ipernity structure and functionality. These might help HappySnapper, as well as others who belong to or know of other photo clubs, introduce Ipernity to the clubs in the current situation where face to face meetings are restricted or in any case unadvisable. I think a video feature with this same aim might be helpful too. Perhaps one where members willing to do it could appear and comment on their experience with Ipernity, with each of them focusing on a particular aspect (keeping it brief, videos get boring if people speak for too long). If members are not willing to show their faces other images could be used. When the online dedicated platform of National Geographic Your Shot was being shut down some members got together to try to save it and put together this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zjEOeXNU7g
It was for a different purpose, of course, but perhaps a similar format could be used to promote Ipernity? It would give a personal feel to our promotional effort and could be effective, I think. If people do not want to have their face displayed, they could use filming of their photos or other images while they speak.

Very Interesting Annalia, That looks a good suggestion to me. I see Your Shot has or had moved to Instagram and I wanted to see their members content but unfortunately before I can see that Instagram wants me to open an account which is something I am unwilling to do at this time.

I left for precisely that reason. I think a photo community and social media are entirely different things. And that is how I discovered Ipernity and found exactly the new home my photography was looking for :)

I think it is time that iPernity both go after it's competition, as well as, get a spokes person to do interviews with industry publications.

Reading today's newsletter reminds me of the social media platform MEWE who's been around a few years with slow growth, and they thrive on free users because this is more economical than paying for advertising.

MeWe positions itself as the alternative to Facebook, just like iPernity should be positioning itself as the alternative to Flickr. It might be a good idea also to get a notable person on the board here. For example: World-renowned thought leaders proudly serve on MeWe’s Advisory Board, including the inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

To understand better what I'm saying here, check out their twitter feed. If I didn't think iPernity was not up to this I wouldn't suggest it. twitter.com/MeWe

Hope you find this helpful.

Thinking more about the idea of who a notable person could be, Stewart Butterfield comes to mind. He's co-founder of Flickr, and now founder of Slack. Ipernity seems to be moving more in the direction of a community business model than Flickr is today, and the new owner of Flickr I don't think has even talked with the founders of Flickr about business model.

Hi Frank, I think the idea is pretty good. Can you get in touch with Steward Butterfield? I think it's better if a well-connected American does it than an unknown European from a small country in the Alps.

I would be happy to make contact with Mr. Butterfield, Bernhard, but I think we need to have an agreed plan from the IMA what roll he would play for iPernity. My suggestion is to ask first for his interest and feedback on what we're doing, and second to seek his being an advisor to the IMA. I think also, once I make contact to introduce him to a point person on the IMA, as you suggest and American. Your thoughts?

Peter Castell club
Regarding your thoughts in getting camera clubs to join us would it be helpful if you produced a document setting out the advantages that members could download and forward to photo clubs in their area, while most clubs are unable to hold meetings maybe this could be exploited. But it would need a standard letter maybe with link to the Autumn collection video

En France il existe une Fédération de photographes regroupant des clubs d'amateurs, la Fédération Photographique de France. Elle regroupe 8500 adhérents dans 525 clubs. Il est certainement possible de négocier un partenariat avec cette Fédération en proposant des avantages pour leurs adhérents. Je suis certain qu'ils seraient heureux d'ajouter Ipernity dans la section "Avantage adhérents". Leur site : federation-photo.fr

✅ I am very pleased with the direction the discussion is taking here. And I believe that we really have a chance with photo clubs. It is not for nothing that we have set a signal to this effect with the new homepage.

When we address photo clubs, two questions will immediately arise:

1) Who are you?
2) What advantages do we have?

Therefore it is important that we have two answers ready:

1) An attractive internal page, which shows in an easy way who we are and what makes us different from others. The content of this page can of course also be printed or published as a youTube video. To collect ideas for content and design: Topic 8: Internal ipernity page 'Community"

2) A list of top advantages. The collection of material under: Topic 2:Reasons to join ipernity

Both can also be illustrated. Because the long texts that we currently have online are only an emergency solution from the very beginning. Nobody nowadays reads boring floods of letters for such a long time. As soon as it is ready we can go out into the world with itm.

The financial conditions are secondary bureaucratic stuff. That does the least work.
(Bernhard)

Following my previous entry referring to a failed attempt to introduce my local Photography club to Ipernity I am still of the same the belief that there is room for Ipernity to host individual photo groups within the Ipernity platform. I have thought about starting a new "Camera Club" for my local district to be hosted by "Ipernity an International Photo Club"
I would in the first instant need to know if I am right in referring to Ipernity as a International photo club and if this is OK then I can prepare some advertising using local media and for a small fee a local free issue newspaper article.
For those outside of the UK, we here in the UK are still having to restrict group gatherings due to Covid 19 and this is likely to continue for some time to come, many clubs and businesses have failed for this reason and there is now the opportunity to revitalise interest for those with cameras via the internet especially in the long winter months ahead.

Thank you for considering making this initiative, every little bit helps.
I would suggest, "Ipernity, an international online photo club."
See Bernard's comment to follow.

❗ Unfortunately, the term 'International Photo Club' is not suitable, because ipernity is legally a French association. (When it was founded, it was briefly considered whether it should be done as a European association. But the founding team chose the easier way in the rush of time.
Moreover, there is no international association law existing. Therefore we cannot officially call ipernity an 'international club'.)
You see how complex the thoughts were to formulate the slogan on the homepage exactly as it is written there:
ipernity, probably the largest non-commercial online photo club in the world.

Speaking only as a fellow member, I would go ahead with your own choice, though I personally would add the word 'online' somewhere in the writeup. As long as you are not writing or speaking as an official of ipernity, as long as you are simply a member promoting something you enjoy, I believe you can use the wording you prefer. We certainly are an international photo club, even if we don't use that terminology in our official uses.

If you want to use the offical terminology, then the slogan on our homepage (that Bernhard mentions) is appropriate.

I think what you are doing is great! I'd love to see what you come up with for the article. It could inspire others.

Ok, Having seen Bernard's response below I might go along on the lines of "Are you interested in Joining a new camera club for "Our Town" which will be hosted online by Ipernity- Probably the largest .............. and then on to my proposal.

I would like to add the following to the best choice of words:

The 'International Olympic Committee' actually represents the interests of all affiliated federations worldwide. So does the 'Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile'. They are therefore international.

But Walmart (USA), for example, is the largest department shop group in the world. However, because it does not have branches in many countries, it is not international. Volkswagen (Germany) is the largest car manufacturer in the world, but it is not an international car manufacturer.

Ipernity also has members from only some 15 or 20 countries in the world. It is probably the largest online photo club in the world, but far from being international. It only has members in a couple of countries.