Custom Flickr photos are a quick, easily customized way of establishing an online presence. The Flickr site, along with its numerous partner sites who are capable of accessing your Flickr photos if you choose to permit it, offer a wide variety of photo editing tools.

Whether you choose to use the Flickr photos site to distribute images of your business at work, depict the services and products you offer, or highlight people and values critical to your business operations, creativity is the only limit to how Flickr photo sharing can help your business operations. Here are just a few of the options to consider:

1. Help your prospective customers and clients get to know you and the services your offer with Flickr photos online.

2. Pick photos that showcase your company's core values and mission statement.

3. Recruit future employees by showcasing the desirable aspects of everyday business operations through online Flickr photos.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Start with basic Flickr photos information

Take the first basic steps toward creating your own customized Flickr photos. Sort through the digital photos on your computer or, if you don't already have them, go out and take some with an eye toward the message you intend to send when they are displayed online.

I recommend: Go straight to the Flickr photos site and upload photos that you'd like to edit or distribute online into your Flickr photostream. If you work from multiple computers or lose your personal computer backup for some reason, applications like Flump function to import all of the photos from your user-specific account to your personal computer.

Create personalized Flickr photos with Flickr partners

With a variety of interfaces available for creating and editing custom Flickr photos, you can take your pick among a number of Flickr photo editing partners.

I recommend: Preloadr is a free application that offers simple online editing tools for photos from your Flickr photostream. Picnik is an official Flickr partner, with services accessible directly through Flickr by clicking on the "Edit photo" link on any main photo page. It is available as a stand-alone online program as well.

Create your own Flickr photos help

Customizing Flickr photos is quick and easy to do; odds are good that, if you're having problems with Flickr photos, advice is just a click or two away.

I recommend: Run the Flickr configurator to help you troubleshoot any problems you may be having with basic Flickr settings. If you're still having problems, the answer is probably already available in the Flickr forums.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Remember that the general public can access any and all of your Flickr photos marked as 'public' and/or 'safe.' Consider inserting a watermark or trademark to make this aspect of Flickr's photo sharing work for you; any stolen or borrowed photos become instant advertising.