I never thought much of this photo. But I posted it on Flickr and it received thousands more views than 90% of the other images I’ve posted there. That’s good learning for me, all thanks to social media tools. The social media path has had a lot of twists and turns for me over the last year. There’s lots of advice on the web to process: “you should have a blog instead of a Flash-based website;” “you should Twitter more often;” “Foursquare is huge – are you on it;” and so and and so forth. What began as basic photo sharing suddenly started to feel like a huge pile of work. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure what parts of the Internet help my craft — parts that I, personally, find valuable. I’ve focused on three major categories: photography blogs, Flickr and podcasts. Blogs put a face on the photographers and film makers I know and admire. I use Flickr like other people use Twitter and it provides me with valuable insights into what images appeal to other people — the analytics on Flickr are great with the pro accounts. Podcasts work as career development classes — there’s always something new to learn and they make it easy to stay on top of the latest discussion in just about any category. Everyone will find what tools and platforms work best for them online. I think what matters most is that you’re trying to find them in the first place.