The flickr site, The British Monarchy, which went live on 26 July 2010, features the latest images of royal engagements as well as historic photos from the archives of the past.
The British Monarchy on flickr is divided into two collections: The Royal Collection which contains seven sets of images and The Royal Family, which contains 19 sets.
Flickr and the Royal Collection
The blurb on flickr says, “Shaped by the personal tastes of kings and queens over more than 500 years, the Royal Collection includes paintings, photographs, drawings and watercolors, furniture, ceramics, clocks, silver, sculpture, jewelery, books, manuscripts, prints and maps, arms and armor, fans and textiles. This section contains photographs from current Royal Collection exhibitions and publications.”
The official caption on The British Monarchy flickr site, Royal Family Collection reads “Photographs of members of the Royal Family as well as images of Royal events and ceremonies.” These photos look like any other family album, only they are better photographed, and the faces are all familiar.
This may be social media the royal way - there is still very much a one-way flow of information. None of the social media sites has commenting enabled. According to the AP, officials have said that users are welcome to embed and share the photos from Flickr, however the images are watermarked “© Press Association” and no Creative Commons leeway is given. This is also the case with YouTube.
Twitter @BritishMonarchy
July 2009 the Queen of England, as head of the Royal family became a tweeter. She deiced to keep her loyal subjects and the rest of the world up to date with the diary commitments of her family and other daily events of the Royals.
@BritishMonarchy has made over 3600 tweets to date and though Queen Elizabeth and the Prince of Wales and other members of the British Royal Family do not actually do any of the updates, as one might expect, they have over 500 000 followers.
YouTube First Royal Family Social Media
YouTube appears to have been the House of Windsor’s first foray into social media. In 2006, after podcasting Queen Elizabeth’s Christmas Speech for the first time, the monarchy went public by broadcasting "The Royal Channel" on YouTube in 2007. When it went live, the Queen was an instant YouTube sensation with almost 400,000 people watching it during the first two days of its launch. Today the site registers over 9 million views.
There is no doubt that The British Monarchy on flickr will be popular, even though it breaks most of the social media rules, but by not allowing comments or contacts and by having watermarks on the photos that cannot be removed. But it is still nice to see the photos and have the British Royal Family just a little bit more accessible.
Karen Lotter - Karen Lotter is a journalist and writer based in Durban, South Africa. She has written profiles, features, advertising copy, ...
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