Advertise Image Hosting Site

Basically I want to advertise my image hosting site imghold, but I've got no real idea where to do it. I've already got a banner at Planet Renders which is getting a few clicks and a link at Photoshop tutorial site which is doing suprisingly well, but I want to get a lot more traffic, any ideas where to advertise?

Image host is a hard one, the market is very saturated and bigger sites can make it hard especially when starting up.

My idea for an image hosting site would be something like, get some pens or something with the sites name on, then someone needs to upload an image and they're trying to think where to upload it and voila! There's a pen with your url on right in front of them.

What I'm trying to say is, to really break through in that market you'll have to think outsite the normal online marketing confines.

Originally Posted by Jmz Image host is a hard one, the market is very saturated and bigger sites can make it hard especially when starting up. My idea for an image hosting site would be something like, get some pens or something with the sites name on, then someone needs to upload an image and they're trying to think where to upload it and voila! There's a pen with your url on right in front of them. What I'm trying to say is, to really break through in that market you'll have to think outsite the normal online marketing confines.

I like your approach to thinking, but when you look at this in depth, it's not very practical. Take the bulk cost for say, 10,000 pens. Cheaply, say 15 cent each. Which works out to $1,500 - quite a lot. How many of those people do you think will use the site? And then how many of those will generate revenue on the site by some sort of PPC? Each person would need to generate 15 cent of revenue for you to break even.

Having said that, I don't have another idea yet

Originally Posted by Jmz Image host is a hard one, the market is very saturated and bigger sites can make it hard especially when starting up. My idea for an image hosting site would be something like, get some pens or something with the sites name on, then someone needs to upload an image and they're trying to think where to upload it and voila! There's a pen with your url on right in front of them. What I'm trying to say is, to really break through in that market you'll have to think outsite the normal online marketing confines.

To be honest, I think this is a terrible idea... first off, as Seb said pens cost quite a bit. As a percentage, Im guessing that it'll be low for cost -> traffic. Secondly, how will you distribute the pens? Where will they go? Who would you target?
Im thinking that if you were to advertise an image host 'offline', a small advertisement in the papers would be more effective (however even this isn't a decent method of traffic).

An image host, in my opinion, is best advertised on the net. However, if it was to get big enough, it could be advertised offline. Maybe a few leaflets in shops, or places where you must wait (I.e. the underground etc.). But realistically, advertising on the net is a lot cheaper, and due to the type of traffic your looking for, a lot more effective.

Advertising on sites such as eBay, and other auctioning sites, is a good place to start. This is because eBay offer free hosting for one image, but you must pay for further images (or even a gallery). So people host them for free elsewhere.

Another good place to advertise would be graphics forums/sites. There are many forums out there that are dedicated to people learning/showing off their graphical talent. Many of these people don't have web space, and so will need an image host.

Hope it's helped a little, and good luck

Marky

Thanks for your ideas. I really only want to advertise online, as I don't have the funds for offline and I don't see the rewards being great for such a lot of money.

eBay seems to be a good idea, and I stated I already got some adverts on plant renders and photoshop tutorial sites, so maybe I just need to get more?

Thanks for your input.

Host popular images and get on digg's frontpage.

Advertise on Proxy sites. I think that would be a good place to promote your image hosting site. I was also thinking that you could add myspace resources to your image hosting site. You could also come up with some graphics for myspace.

It takes time just keep pluggin at it.

Try to give rewards to people if the image they uploaded reaches 1000 visits (in example).
That'll bring you traffic, you just need to post in a lot of contests forums.

The only answer is > Social Bookmarking sites

i have image hosting site too. i need to advertise.