It’s always fun to get good questions from readers via my contact Matt McGee page, and even more fun when the question comes from someone whose blog I read regularly and enjoy.

Rich Brooks, who writes the small business-oriented flyte blog, emailed earlier this week with this question about marketing on Flickr in light of the Flickr TOS:

I had a question on Flickr and your post Flickr No-Follows (Some) Outbound Links.

You had reported that flickr account for abusing the TOS, right? So I looked at Flickr’s TOS and it appears you can’t use Flickr for ANY commercial purpose. But don’t photographers use Flickr all the time for just that purpose? And I see web designers and artists putting up there work for the same purpose.

Where’s the line? Why is one right and the other wrong?

I’m asking in part b/c as a web designer, I started to put up my own work, but now I’m wondering if that’s not OK.

(When Richard is referring to reporting an account for violating the TOS, I think he was referring to this post on MattMcGee.com where I showed a blatant case of Flickr spam.) That said, here’s what I wrote back:

Sorry for the slow reply. I’m still in NYC at Search Engine Strategies, and coincidentally, this exact question was asked during the session I spoke in today. I would say this: If you’re a contributing member of the community who generally adds value to Flickr and doesn’t overdo the sales push, it’s fine. It’s the really blatant stuff that’s a problem. In my presentation, I showed a screenshot of this thread from the local Flickr group covering my hometown:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/tricities/discuss/72157604004133952/

This is clearly an advertisement, but it’s from someone the group knows and trusts and so no one minds.

On a related note, one of the Yahoo/Flickr bigwigs gave a presentation at SES San Jose in 2006, and I asked a question like this — what will they tolerate? She basically answered that they don’t want businesses using Flickr to store/upload entire product catalogs. So, I’m assuming the line gets drawn somewhere around there.

What are your thoughts? Where would you draw the line on promotion via Flickr?

Previous Mailbags/Reader Q&A:
What Does Google Think About Linkbait?
SBS Mailbag: Adding Your Business to Citysearch