That’s right, Tracy. The guidelines definitely apply to business.

I still strongly recommend every business use Flickr, and that they read and understand the Flickr Best Practices for Organizations which give great, easy to understand examples of how businesses can use Flickr appropriately.

Hi Becky,

The guidelines you link to in your reply to Sarah specifically say:

“Familiarize yourself with the Flickr Community Guidelines
It’s not just you—all members on Flickr, whether they are an organization or a person—have to abide by the Community Guidelines.”

So what Sarah posted does apply to businesses too.

Thanks,
Tracy

Sarah, thanks for sharing that section of the community guidelines, referring to their Best Practices. For small businesses looking to use Flickr, they’ve helpfully provided a full page of Best Practices that they happily endorse for business use. You’ll find those here: Flickr Best Practices for Organizations.

Specifically talking about photo descriptions, the Best Practices encourage:
“Add meaningful titles and descriptions (but no price information or sales-y verbiage) to your content.”

So don’t ignore Flickr. Just don’t spam it. Use it wisely to share the best of your business through photos.

Don’t use Flickr to sell.
If we find you engaging in commercial activity, we will warn you or delete your account. Some examples include selling products, services, or yourself through your photostream or in a group, using your account solely as a product catalog, or linking to commercial sites in your photostream. If you engage in commercial activity elsewhere on the internets or in the real world, you’re still welcome on Flickr—in fact, we’ve even set up some best practices especially for you.

http://www.flickr.com/help/guidelines/