Post by Matt Brown on Aug 18, 2007 9:40:52 GMT -5
I came across this on another board that I visit (for tuba dorks), and thought it might be of some use here:
Posting photos of your item when trying to sell it usually makes the whole sales process go faster. (Not always, mind you . . . )
First, you will need digital images that are actually ON YOUR HARD DRIVE! Acceptable digital cameras for taking photos of your sale items can be found at Target for under $40 if you take the time to look. They are not that good but will allow you to inexpensively get images of the stuff you intend to sell up on the Internet.
So GO GET ONE!
They are cheap, even by poor college student standards of "cheap," so do not whine about not having some "expensive" camera. That is bogus. It is assumed that if you are taking the time to read this that you actually want to learn how to do it. And the camera is a pretty important part of this whole process, you know . . .
Read the camera instructions, take wonderful photos and upload your stuff to your computer. Then you are ready to do what we are talking about here.
****************************************************
Go to www.photobucket.com and register for a FREE account. You cannot post photos from your computer directly onto this forum. The software can only link to photos that are hosted elsewhere, and posting from your computer would require that you leave your computer on 24/7/365 and make it accessible to outsiders; in essence, you would need to make your computer a file server. You don't want to do that with your nice home computer, right?
Since one photo can take up the space of MANY pages of text, this forum will not allow you to host the photos on site, uploaded directly into your post from your computer. Rather, you must upload your photos to a photo hosting website. You create an account (open an album, basically) and start uploading. Then you link to your picture from your album to your TubeNet post. It sounds hard but is quite easy. Read the following very slowly and carefully. Then try to do it and you will be able to post photos of your items in the For Sale forum with no problems.
Inline photos will sell the item for you.
If you have people emailing you for photos you slow the sales process greatly and run off casual window shoppers who might actually end up being your buyer. Photos posted inline work. By doing this you will be able to "sell" your item while you are not here. Many more will see it. It is better than having the very lame "email me for pics" in your ad.
Anyway, Photobucket is where I stick all of my pictures, so I will deal with how to post photos using them as my example. Most other popular photo hosting sites work in a similar manner.
****************************************************
When registering for an account, Photobucket requires that all personal information be filled out. Some people do not like the idea of giving out such information. Happily, Photobucket does not seem to require that your personal information actually be true. (You do, however, need a valid email address. You can get one of those for free, too, and under a fake name if you are über paranoid.)
Anyway, for this tutorial I simply made up a new account for "the-elephant" (no spaces allowed in your name; drat!) and gave them totally bogus personal information, including that my education included "some junior high" and that my DOB was 1/1/1886 . . . funny that 1886 was available. I used my old Brooklyn ZIP code. I suppose that I should have chosen Albania as my home country . . . What was I thinking?
Here is my bogus personal information.
Now you need to get your photos uploaded.
****************************************************
Click the Choose File button and locate the photo that you wish to upload to your Photobucket album. You may load more than one at a time, but you must select them individually. Each time you click the Select button a window will open that will allow you to browse your computer to locate you photo. when you find it, select it and it will be displayed as below (more or less, as Photobucket has changed a little since I first posted this).
Here I have selected a photo and am ready to click the Upload button.
When you are ready, click the Upload button. Be prepared to wait. This process usually take seconds but sometimes it takes minutes. (Server traffic, you know how it is . . . )
Photobucket gives you three idiot-proof (sort of) methods of flooding the WWW with your photos. To post here on TubeNet (or any forum that uses BBCode) you need only select and copy the text in the IMG box. Make certain to get all of it!
(Needless, extra information for the adventurous: URL is the code snippet that you copy and paste for use in email and IM windows. You may also use it in a forum when you do not want inline photos but would rather use direct hyperlinks. Tag is for use in blogs or places like facebook and myspace. If you need to post to a site that uses html instead of BBCode or just want to post on TubeNet in a different way, you can use most BBCode tags, but you must swap the "[" and "]" on the ends for "<" and ">" . . . clear as mud? GREAT!)
Here I have selected the IMG line of code that will allow me to post the photo on TubeNet.
****************************************************
Now all you have to do is paste that copied text in the window while you are typing up your wonderful TubeNet For Sale post . . . Woo-hoo! In the photo below I have added the code copied from Photobucket to my TubeNet post as well as tags to display certain text bolded or in italics. (The copied line of text is actually the web address of where your photo "lives" with tags on either end that tell your browser to display that address inline as a photograph. No voodoo or spooky stuff.)
Here is the line of text from Photobucket pasted into my post.
And here is what my finished post looks like. Notice the italicized and bolded text, in case you were wondering how we did that stuff as well as the whole photo thing. Placing text in italics and bold is also very easy.
Finished post with minor text formatting and an inline photograph.
Et voila!
I have just posted an inline photograph in my post or ad or whatever. It was FREE and easy to do!
Including photos in your ad turns it into a 24/7/365 selling device rather than a whenever-I-get-to-check-my-email-and-have-time-to-answer-it-and-hope-that-the-interested-party-has-not-found-another-horn-by-now prospect. Think about it. Figure it out. The instructions only take a few minutes to read at any photo hosting site. Taking a little time to learn some new stuff will make your sales smoother and probably a bit faster.
*********
Hope this helps - thanks to the original tubadork poster ;D - saved me the time/effort of writing it up and posting myself.
Matt
Posting photos of your item when trying to sell it usually makes the whole sales process go faster. (Not always, mind you . . . )
First, you will need digital images that are actually ON YOUR HARD DRIVE! Acceptable digital cameras for taking photos of your sale items can be found at Target for under $40 if you take the time to look. They are not that good but will allow you to inexpensively get images of the stuff you intend to sell up on the Internet.
So GO GET ONE!
They are cheap, even by poor college student standards of "cheap," so do not whine about not having some "expensive" camera. That is bogus. It is assumed that if you are taking the time to read this that you actually want to learn how to do it. And the camera is a pretty important part of this whole process, you know . . .
Read the camera instructions, take wonderful photos and upload your stuff to your computer. Then you are ready to do what we are talking about here.
****************************************************
Go to www.photobucket.com and register for a FREE account. You cannot post photos from your computer directly onto this forum. The software can only link to photos that are hosted elsewhere, and posting from your computer would require that you leave your computer on 24/7/365 and make it accessible to outsiders; in essence, you would need to make your computer a file server. You don't want to do that with your nice home computer, right?
Since one photo can take up the space of MANY pages of text, this forum will not allow you to host the photos on site, uploaded directly into your post from your computer. Rather, you must upload your photos to a photo hosting website. You create an account (open an album, basically) and start uploading. Then you link to your picture from your album to your TubeNet post. It sounds hard but is quite easy. Read the following very slowly and carefully. Then try to do it and you will be able to post photos of your items in the For Sale forum with no problems.
Inline photos will sell the item for you.
If you have people emailing you for photos you slow the sales process greatly and run off casual window shoppers who might actually end up being your buyer. Photos posted inline work. By doing this you will be able to "sell" your item while you are not here. Many more will see it. It is better than having the very lame "email me for pics" in your ad.
Anyway, Photobucket is where I stick all of my pictures, so I will deal with how to post photos using them as my example. Most other popular photo hosting sites work in a similar manner.
****************************************************
When registering for an account, Photobucket requires that all personal information be filled out. Some people do not like the idea of giving out such information. Happily, Photobucket does not seem to require that your personal information actually be true. (You do, however, need a valid email address. You can get one of those for free, too, and under a fake name if you are über paranoid.)
Anyway, for this tutorial I simply made up a new account for "the-elephant" (no spaces allowed in your name; drat!) and gave them totally bogus personal information, including that my education included "some junior high" and that my DOB was 1/1/1886 . . . funny that 1886 was available. I used my old Brooklyn ZIP code. I suppose that I should have chosen Albania as my home country . . . What was I thinking?
Here is my bogus personal information.
Now you need to get your photos uploaded.
****************************************************
Click the Choose File button and locate the photo that you wish to upload to your Photobucket album. You may load more than one at a time, but you must select them individually. Each time you click the Select button a window will open that will allow you to browse your computer to locate you photo. when you find it, select it and it will be displayed as below (more or less, as Photobucket has changed a little since I first posted this).
Here I have selected a photo and am ready to click the Upload button.
When you are ready, click the Upload button. Be prepared to wait. This process usually take seconds but sometimes it takes minutes. (Server traffic, you know how it is . . . )
Photobucket gives you three idiot-proof (sort of) methods of flooding the WWW with your photos. To post here on TubeNet (or any forum that uses BBCode) you need only select and copy the text in the IMG box. Make certain to get all of it!
(Needless, extra information for the adventurous: URL is the code snippet that you copy and paste for use in email and IM windows. You may also use it in a forum when you do not want inline photos but would rather use direct hyperlinks. Tag is for use in blogs or places like facebook and myspace. If you need to post to a site that uses html instead of BBCode or just want to post on TubeNet in a different way, you can use most BBCode tags, but you must swap the "[" and "]" on the ends for "<" and ">" . . . clear as mud? GREAT!)
Here I have selected the IMG line of code that will allow me to post the photo on TubeNet.
****************************************************
Now all you have to do is paste that copied text in the window while you are typing up your wonderful TubeNet For Sale post . . . Woo-hoo! In the photo below I have added the code copied from Photobucket to my TubeNet post as well as tags to display certain text bolded or in italics. (The copied line of text is actually the web address of where your photo "lives" with tags on either end that tell your browser to display that address inline as a photograph. No voodoo or spooky stuff.)
Here is the line of text from Photobucket pasted into my post.
And here is what my finished post looks like. Notice the italicized and bolded text, in case you were wondering how we did that stuff as well as the whole photo thing. Placing text in italics and bold is also very easy.
Finished post with minor text formatting and an inline photograph.
Et voila!
I have just posted an inline photograph in my post or ad or whatever. It was FREE and easy to do!
Including photos in your ad turns it into a 24/7/365 selling device rather than a whenever-I-get-to-check-my-email-and-have-time-to-answer-it-and-hope-that-the-interested-party-has-not-found-another-horn-by-now prospect. Think about it. Figure it out. The instructions only take a few minutes to read at any photo hosting site. Taking a little time to learn some new stuff will make your sales smoother and probably a bit faster.
*********
Hope this helps - thanks to the original tubadork poster ;D - saved me the time/effort of writing it up and posting myself.
Matt