Blog Tip #19: Add some life to your blog, use a Flickr Photo Pool

If your blog has too many words and not enough picures, or if you are looking for ways to engage and reward your readers for their continued readership and participation in your blog, you can take it a step further by creating a Flickr Photo Pool for your blog and posting pictures from that pool on your blog.

All you need to get a free Flickr account is a Yahoo ID (Yahoo bought Flickr a few months ago). Then create a Flickr account, then a Flickr group for your blog, and then create a Flickr photo pool. Once the photo pool is created, announce this on your blog and invite your readers to submit their pictures to your photo pool (or add your own to get it started).

When there's at least one picture in the Photo Pool, you can create Flickr Badges and post them on your blog or website. These can be either HTML or Flash-based and can be customized using CSS for those who like to customize. You can let the computer randomly decide which pictures are loaded each time your page is loaded, or you can show the last few pictures added it. You can also choose how many pictures are shown, how big/small they are, and whether they go vertically or horizontally (eg if putting them in a post or a sidebar).

If you are not familiar with Flickr, you can figure things out quickly using their Help pages.