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The Success Story of Snaphubr.com | Africa’s Photography Marketplace

This post was written by for TechPoint.ng. It has been reposted from TechPoint with permission. The right of Ifeanyi Ndiomewese to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the copyright laws.
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Hardly a day goes by these days without people posing in front of a camera, be it from amateur shots taken from their mobile phones or from the lens of a professional photographer. Among the most common uses for social media, sharing personal pictures and selfies definitely take the cake.

From uploading pictures of your cool office, group pictures of friends and family, to even the ones you take at a yam barn after a hard day’s work on the farm harvesting, trust me there’s never a dull moment where taking pictures is concerned. Now, what if I told you that regular activity can be an avenue for earning foreign currency every month?

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Introducing SnapHubr

SnapHubr in three words can be described as “simple but rewarding”. In plenty grammar, you can describe Snaphubr as an African high stock image website and marketplace where people simply upload and sell their images. The company — founded about 2 years ago, but launched in September 2015, operates from the UK but focuses on Africa — is on a mission to change the way user generated images are shared online, such that value is exchanged for user’s hard work while taking and uploading their images online.

In a chat with the multi-functional founder of this company, Babajide Oluwaseun remarked.

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“You work hard for your picture either as a photographer or an individual, and then you should get full value for it”

Think of a multiple benefit platform, and then Snaphubr ticks this creative box. While the platform primarily tends towards employment creation, through sales of user generated image(s), SnapHubr is also in tune with the idea of promoting and exporting the rich African culture to the global scene through images that portray the real African identity.

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Buying an image on SnapHubr costs just 99 cent. Call it cheap from a buyer’s perspective, I agree, but as a seller, do the maths of multiplying 45% of each 99 cents by thousands or possibly millions of people that would buy JUST one image, let alone for multiple image upload. With this, I see a lot of people entering and exiting their banks smiling.

How it works

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The process begins with a few seconds of registration on SnapHubr.com (via email, Facebook or Google) and upon completion, you can then begin uploading images. SnapHubr makes it available to the potential buyers, handles 100% of the marketing and payment process and sends out 45% commission of each sale owed to the customer using PayPal or bank transfer. Users get paid once they reach the $50 threshold. The process is transparent such that users can monitor their image sales from their dashboard.

 

Requirements and Regulation

You must be wondering at this point what kind of pictures meet SnapHubr’s requirement and as well the safety of your images. For beginners no one worries about safety of images when they upload their images on multiple social media platforms. SnapHubr however is keen on its protection policy which has seen it put measures in place to trace location of people who upload on their website by monitoring their IP address. Furthermore images are automatically watermarked upon upload to protect user images from being copied, although users will before then get a notification regarding whether an uploaded images is accepted or not in the first place.

Talking of images being accepted or rejected; images have to be of high quality, above 700 pixels, not pre-watermarked, and of course must not promote any form of nudity.

 

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Funding

The initiative, with a rather easy-to-execute look on paper, has soaked in over £20,000  from bootstrapping alone since undergoing self test and launch. The founder though is looking to work with well establish investors whose ambitions and expertise tie in with the long term plans of SnapHubr, Like Justin Clarke for instance – founder of One Africa Media — and Jason Njoku – founder of iROKO tv. “But besides that there’s a big market for us 100%”, he adds.

Challenges

The founder is dealing with having to make SnapHubr’s user interface simpler and user friendly, which will improve user experience, thus explaining why SnapHubr recently rolled in some new features, some of which will inevitably increase image traction. For instance like having to “like” or “share” an image and in the nearest future would have users “following” other users in order to get first-hand updates of their picture uploads. More still, “finding the right HR team to do job has been difficult” he adds.

Prospects

The main mission is for SnapHubr is to be the next Facebook of Africa, and in line with this is increasing staff strength to more than 100 and increasing user base to a 1 million users. Though SnapHubr is currently domiciled in the UK, Babajide believes that its presence online makes it easy for everyone to easily access its platform. However, plans are on to have an office in Africa within the next 6 months, Nigeria to be specific.

So rather than freely uploading images on different social media platforms without getting any value in return, SnapHubr is telling you to upload your images on its website, worry less about marketing, and earn money from it. I don’t know about you, but this is self employment.

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Sam Wakoba
Sam Wakobahttp://techmoran.com
Taking you on tour through Africa's tech and business ecosystem, one story at a time since 2010! Based out of Nairobi, Kenya, Sam is the founder and managing director of Moran Media, which runs  TechMoran.com, various other digital platforms and a startup incubation hub for Kenya's youthful entrepreneurs. Drop me a mail at [email protected]

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