robbalvey Posted May 30, 2010 Share Posted May 30, 2010 (edited) Posting Tips! Hey TPR Readers! With the 2010 park season upon us now and many of you will be posting lots of trip reports, I wanted to take a moment to remind you of some very important trip report posting tips! Tip #1 - Always upload your photos to TPR! When creating a trip report and posting a new message to TPR, you can very easily upload your photos in your thread by using the "Post Photos or Files" tool at the bottom of the screen. The attachment tool looks like this: Simply "browse" for the photo on your computer's hard drive, select the photo and click "Add the File." Repeat this step for as many photos as you want to attach. You can even write a caption for them which will show up below the picture! Question: What if I have my photos on my website or an image hosting service like Photobucket. Can I just link to them? Answer: Yes you can...BUT...if your photos are not uploaded to TPR, we WILL NOT feature your update on the front page and we WILL NOT feature your update in our park index. If your photos are not uploaded to TPR, that means we have no control over the content in your update, and if you were to ever delete your photos from where they are being hosted, your report will look like this: Please keep in mind that many trip reports get looked at YEARS after you originally post them if we feature them in our Park Index. Tip #2 - Try to tell some sort of story or have a "theme" to your thread! Random park photos are ok, but if you try to tell a story, or give the readers a reason to follow along, chances are good they will read your entire update. Even if your story is simply "A day at a park" post your photos in chronological order, or have a theme like "First we hit all the coasters...then the dark rides...then the flat rides, etc." Trip reports that are all over the place can get confusing and uninteresting REALY quickly! Another great idea is to come up with a recurring theme where you can update your thread many times to keep it active, fun, and interesting! The Big Mike Roadshow is a great example of this. So is Shane's Amusement Attic, and the adventures of Gertrude. Be creative! Your reports don't always just have to be photos of a park. It's all in how you present them to your audience! Tip #3 - Post your BEST photos on the first page of your report! What we have learned over the years of doing trip reports is that even the BEST trip reports will lose readers from page 1 to page 2. So try to feature your BEST photos on the first post or first page of your report and chances are people will click through to the 2nd page or keep coming back to your thread when you post another update. Tip #4 - Post your photos when TPR has high traffic for the best response! We have a "statistics" page which tells you the highest traffic days and times on TPR. Traditionally, Mon - Wed are some of our best traffic days, and Fri - Sun are the slowest. You might find that if you post your trip report at 7pm on a Friday night, it won't get a lot of responses and get buried quickly. You may have had better luck posting your report on a Monday or Tuesday morning! Tip #5 - Get your trip report on the TPR Front Page! Many people ask me... "How can I get my trip report on the front page of TPR?" Well, there isn't an exact answer other than "We feature interesting trip reports on the front page." So if your trip report is well written, includes GREAT photos, and perhaps either an interesting park, new attraction, great theme, or overall just a really solid, fun report even if it's a for a park or attraction that's been on the front page many times, you may find we will feature your contribution on the front page! And who knows, maybe even in upcoming issues of our Club TPR publication! And remember, if your photos are not uploaded to TPR, we WILL NOT feature it on the front page! Tip #6 - Post videos in your report! To make your trip report even MORE interesting, post videos! We encourage everyone to upload their videos to CoasterTube! When you log into the TPR forum, you are automatically logged into CoasterTube. Click on the CoasterTube link from TPR's front page or the "Video Downloads" link above. To upload your video click "Upload Video", browse for the file on your computer, and submit it! It's very easy! Just like added a video to YouTube. Each video page contains instructions on the right hand side on how to embed your video into your Forum Post. Just copy the link from the top box in this photo and paste it into the text box of your forum post: Uploading videos to CoasterTube and embedding them in your post is easy once you get the hang of it! Tip #7 - Post your photo trip reports on TPR instead of Facebook or Twitter! We really encourage you to post your photo reports on Theme Park Review! A wider audience of people will more than likely see your photos HERE than on your Facebook or Twitter page! Especially if you're report is GREAT! And then link to your TPR report on your Facebook and Twitter to share with your family and friends! Remember, TPR does not re-process your photos when you upload them so they will also be higher quality. I think that's all the trip report posting tips I have for right now. Any questions about posting reports? Please ask! --Robb Edited July 15, 2010 by robbalvey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angry_Gumball Posted May 31, 2010 Share Posted May 31, 2010 Great tips...now I can have some kind of idea next time I go on a photo shooting spree. Now, I have to think of some interesting way to present a routine trip to my home park as there's no need on posting the same thing over and over. And I'm one of them who looks at old trip reports from various parks so I can see what they look like and how they've changed including my local parks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coaster-crazy Posted May 31, 2010 Share Posted May 31, 2010 This was very badly needed. I have noticed a lot of broken images in a lot of threads, so hopefully people will read these guidelines and follow them. It's fun to make my TR's like a story because you really get into it and even make people laugh at times. Thanks Robb! (heh, now I know why my Haunted Castle updates have been posted to the front page. ) ~Nicholas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hobbit Posted May 31, 2010 Share Posted May 31, 2010 This is a GREAT way to have better trip reports here...! This will help a lot when i post my trips here.. thanks ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thrillgeek Posted May 31, 2010 Share Posted May 31, 2010 Much appreciated Robb! Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noticias24 Posted June 1, 2010 Share Posted June 1, 2010 I have a lot of pictures of my California and Vegas trip, I have always thought about making a PTR, but my lack of creativity regarding the captions have kept me back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sspaz1000 Posted June 1, 2010 Share Posted June 1, 2010 Question, would it be OK to at the end of my TR to put a link to my webshots album with the rest of the photos in (cause obviously I'm not going to bore everyone with every picture I took and of course I'll upload the pictures for the report here) but I like to give the option of having the link in case people want to look at the rest of my photos. Nicole Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted June 1, 2010 Author Share Posted June 1, 2010 ^ That would be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sspaz1000 Posted June 1, 2010 Share Posted June 1, 2010 Thanks Robb *Starts plotting her first ever Photo TR for TPR* Nicole Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacemtfan Posted June 1, 2010 Share Posted June 1, 2010 (edited) Thanks for the guide, Robb! I'll definitely keep all of this in mind next time I go to Disneyland... Edited June 1, 2010 by robbalvey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenaapple1974 Posted July 2, 2010 Share Posted July 2, 2010 Hey everyone, Just wanted to thank Robb, Elissa and the crew for keeping this site in the tip top shape it is. I have visited some other boards in the last few days just checking out the stuff they have posted on Cheetaka, and Busch Gardens in general, and those sites REALLY make me appreciate all the goodness that TPR is! So from the bottom of my tippy tippy toes, to the tip top of my head - THANK YOU ALL FOR KEEPING TPR A GREAT PLACE TO BE!! xoxo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted July 15, 2010 Author Share Posted July 15, 2010 Time to unstick this. If you haven't read the tips on the first page of this thread...read them now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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