5,419 uploads in the last minute, 71,248 things tagged with jump, 3.0 million things geotagged this month. Do you still need a reason to get yourself a Flickr account?

Flickr is quickly becoming a popular online marketing tool for it allows creative agencies to market their products through a visually appealing medium. It can help you generate traffic to your website and ensure that your website ranks higher on the major search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing too. Consider this, according to Nielsen or NetRatings, Flickr is the fastest-growing photo sharing site on the web. It is the 7th most trafficked social media site overall.

Flickr is primarily a photo-sharing community, owned by Yahoo!. You can use your Yahoo! Login ID and password to log onto Flickr and use your account to tag your photographs, share them and participate in the community discussions as well. The photographs, which you post on Flickr, might leave a lasting impression in the minds of the millions of Flickr users and some of them might end up being your potential customers as well. By networking actively on the community forums, you can build your contacts and build greater awareness about your business and services as well. You could use the links from Flickr to further your link popularity too!

Video is for everyone too! As a member of Flickr, you can upload and share videos (business videos and presentations too!) just like you do with photos.

To avail the benefits of SEO through Flickr, you need inbound links, which you could obtain in the form of links from other blogs and websites. Ensure that the photo title matches the title tag or element. You are assured higher rankings for the phrase. Most importantly, you should only try to sell unique and noteworthy product or services-related photographs through Flickr.

Quick tips for marketing your business on Flickr:

* Use your business/website name as your Flickr display name.

* Use the best, relevant photographs to advertise your business.

* Actively participate in the Flickr community. Find groups relevant to your business and join them.

* Tag your photographs with terms that are relevant to your business or service. Provide a link to your Flickr account on your website.

However, don't post advertising messages on the discussion forums or stuff keywords in your tags. You could end up turning "off" the community and users, and not being able to generate any interest in your photostream too. To top that, Flickr added "nofollow" tags to links placed within its website last year. Flickr implemented these tags for the same reason as a number of other social-media sites - to prevent misuse and spamming.

Spread the word about who you are and what you do. Do you have a photostream on Flickr? Share it here!