How’s it going gang?
The summer is on it’s way and you know what that means?
Plenty of photo events!
We’ve been toiling away, beers in hand, implementing some cool changes to the PicPic Social universe. Here are some highlights of what’s new with PicPic Social (I hope you’re ready!):
Feature Highlights
- Event Cloud & Classic Server merge
- Clients can remotely login for Facebook Page upload
- Microsite Analytics Tracking
- Event photo hosting (imgpickup merger)
- Automatic photo delivery
- Twitter hashtag printing
- Watch folder & hashtag printing at the same time
- Hashtag printing from Event Cloud
- Instant start for watch folder & hashtag printing
Event Cloud & Classic Server merge
The server for PicPic Social Classic & Event Cloud are now in the same app. When you launch PicPic Social, you will be presented with a prompt that will ask you which server you want to run. If you choose the Event Cloud server you will be able to login to Event Cloud and run your event. If you choose Classic, the regular version of PicPic Social will launch as usual.
This merger will keep things simple for you (and us) so you do not have to manage multiple installs of PicPic Social.
Clients can remotely login for Facebook Page upload
In the past, if you needed to do Facebook page uploads for a client you had three options in order to set this up:
- The client had to give you their username and password – which in most cases is out of the question. Your large corporate clients will not give up their social media credentials and even small and mid-size companies most likely will not either.
- The client would have to make you an admin on the Facebook Page – This is sometimes viable, not not too often possible. Very very small companies might be OK with this, but this is a no fly zone when you start working with bigger clients.
- The client would have to login to their account the day of and grant access in PicPic Social – On the day of, this 3rd option may not be possible as events get super busy and the person with access to the Facebook page may not be easily accessible. Do you really want to bother your client on the day of when they have other things to worry about?
With PicPic Social Event Cloud, you can use the online dashboard to send a Facebook Page access request. Event Cloud will email your client a link they can use to login to Facebook and select the page they want to give you access to. Once they give you access you will receive an email notification and the selected Facebook page will be loaded into your Event Cloud settings. You will now be able to automatically upload to your clients Facebook Page and all the fuss and muss has been eliminated.
This new feature provides a better experience for you and your client so there are no issues with giving account passwords to vendors or inconveniencing your client on the date of their event.
This feature is available in Event Cloud only!
Microsite Analytics Tracking
The microsite feature of PicPic Social EC is allows you to deliver event photos to your client as a link instead of as a direct attachment to in email/text or as a direct post on Facebook or Twitter. To view their event photos, users must click the link which directs them to a landing page where the photo is displayed. The landing page can be branded to advertise your company or your client.
Our microsite feature now tracks the following:
- # of shares taken place via the microsite
- # of page views the microsite received
- # of visits to the microsite
- # of impresses gained the microsite
- # of unique visitors to the microsite
This feature is available in Event Cloud only!
Event photo hosting (imgpickup merger)
Some of you may have noticed it, some of you may not have. We had a photo hosting service available for a few months called imgpickup. imgpickup is a photo hosting service and your event photos would automatically upload your imgpickup account during your event, or after your event if you want.
Using imgpickup allowed you to make your event photos viewable to guests after the event. It seems 40% of photo booth companies don’t have an online gallery and they are missing out on a huge potential to generate web traffic and potential leads. imgpickup aimed to help solve that problem and make the process a whole lot easier. You should about it here.
imgpickup has been merged into PicPic Social EC and everything works together as one system. If you have an imgpickup account you will be migrated to PicPic Social EC, but you just need to update your billing information in EC.
This feature is available in Event Cloud only!
Automatic Photo Delivery
A long with the merger of imgpickup into Event Cloud is Automatic photo delivery. You can schedule for Event Cloud to create a zip file of all the images uploaded to the gallery and have a link sent to your client for download. When scheduling a delivery, you set the date & time you want the photos to be delivered. When the date comes, the Event Cloud system will create a zip file of all the event images and send a link to your client.
This new feature will save you time and allow you to focus on the other aspects of your business without dealing with mundane tasks of uploading photos and sending emails.
This feature is available in Event Cloud only!
Twitter Hashtag printing
The hashtag printer has now been updated to work with Twitter. Any images posted to Twitter are searchable by hashtag and the hashtag printer will download the image and apply your frame to the image. Auto print also works with Twitter hashtag printing, so you do not need a display stand to run the hashtag printer.
Those doing hashtag printing at events will now be able to offer a more versatile Hashtag printing to your clients that now encompasses Instagram & Twitter.
Watch folder & Hashtag printing at the same time
We’ve had this request for a long time and we’re happy to announce it is here. You can now easily do Hashtag printing and select a watch folder for your events. In the past you needed to run PicPic Social and Limigito at the same time, telling Limigito to copy your event photos into the Instagram Cache folder.
Now, you can select multiple sources of photos for your event, those options being a watch folder, Instagram & Twitter!
Hashtag printing from Event Cloud
PicPic Social Event Cloud has been updated to allow you to configure your Hashtag printing settings from the dashboard. In the past, hashtag printing was only available in the Classic version of PicPic Social. Now, Event Cloud users can setup their hashtag printing settings remotely (like from anywhere in the world) and load the settings onto their workstation when they are ready.
The progress bar is dead
*waits for thunderous applause*
A few months ago we started killing the green progress bar. We first started with the regular mode of PicPic Social when using the watch folder. People hated the progress bar because, God forbid you had to restart your computer in the middle of an event, you would have to wait for PicPic Social to process all existing photos in your watch folder before you could connect the sharing station. And then, once the green progress bar was done, you would have to wait for your sharing station to download all the images back to the app. I’m sure people who had hundreds of photos in their watch folder had a few choice words for me at this point.
More recently, we’ve removed the progress bar from the hashtag printer as well. No more waiting for images to download, now you can press the start button and instantly connect your sharing station to the PicPic Social device server. No need for a eulogy, I’m sure it won’t be missed.
How do I update?
Click here to download the latest version of the PicPic Social Device Server. If you update your device server, also make sure you update the sharing stations. Go to your app store and search for “PicPic Social.”
About PicPic Social Event Cloud
PicPic Social EC is the next evolution of PicPic Social. PicPic Social EC offers the convenience of online event setup, remote event administration, hosted photo galleries, online reporting, microsite and more.
If you currently have a PicPic Social license, you may be eligible to trade your current license in for credit towards event cloud.
If you want more information about PicPic Social EC click here.
If you want more information about trading in your existing PicPic Social license click here.
Try PicPic Social Event Cloud FREE for 30 Days!
PicPic Social EC is available for a FREE 30 day trial and no credit card is needed to start the trial. Sign up today and test out all the awesome new features of PicPic Social Event Cloud.
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What updates are you looking for next?
Have a suggestion for a future update? Leave us a message in the comments section below!
