Photo Sharing

How to Share Your Agency's Photos

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Photos make information more interesting and engaging. They make it easier for people to understand your content, especially people with limited English proficiency and those who read at low grade levels.

Photo sharing has become a key part of the social media landscape, since photos can now be so easily shared on sites like Storify.

The government has a wealth of photos, so why not share them? People look to government agencies for “official” pictures of historical people or events, photos of parks or monuments, research around topics such as space exploration or environmental issues…the list is endless.

If your agency has photos to share, check out the list of Terms of Service Agreements that agencies can adopt to access such photo-sharing tools as Flickr or Cooliris.

Specific Requirements

Photos should be accessible to people with disabilities, so make sure that all the photos you post are “tagged” so that screen readers can describe an image to the reader.

Examples

• U.S. Government Photos and Images

Resources

• DigitalGov University's New Media Talks offer best practices and excellent instruction on government use of new media tools.