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Gamify your location based marketing initiatives like treasure hunts with PicTrax
Picture of Obelia McCormack
Obelia McCormack

Designer, photographer, PicTrax app founder, lover of good coffee and real experiences

Location-Based Marketing: Engaging Audiences and Creating Buzz with Location-Based Challenges with PicTrax

In today’s digital age, marketers and tourism organisations are constantly seeking innovative ways to engage audiences, create excitement, and promote their brands or destinations. Enter PicTrax, a platform that harnesses the power of GPS technology to offer a range of immersive experiences, including community engagement, photo contests, mystery tours, art and culture quests, scavenger hunts and real-world treasure hunts, that can help achieve these objectives while delivering a host of additional benefits.

PicTrax is not your typical travel app; it’s a versatile platform that allows users to pin images to specific geographic locations, and access immediate navigation to pinned destinations. Whether you’re a brand looking to engage customers in the real world or a tourism organisation aiming to showcase your destination’s unique offerings and increase visitation, PicTrax can add e new level of participation to your marketing. Here’s how you can leverage PicTrax to your advantage:

1. Engage Your Audience: Create location-based challenges that captivate and motivate participants. By combining physical exploration with digital interactivity, you can immerse your audience in a thrilling adventure.

2. Create Buzz: Nothing generates excitement like the prospect of discovering hidden treasures. Whether it’s clues, prizes, unlocking discounts, or unique experiences, PicTrax can help you create a buzz around your brand or destination, driving interest and engagement.

3. Build Brand Loyalty: By offering memorable and rewarding experiences, you can foster brand loyalty among your audience. Those who participate in your real-world, location-based campaigns are likely to remember and associate your brand with adventure and fun.

4. User-Generated Content: Encourage participants to capture their experiences and share them on social media, generating valuable user-generated content that promotes your brand or destination organically.

Launching a Treasure Hunt Campaign with PicTrax

Here are the steps you need to take to launch a successful treasure hunt campaign using PicTrax:

Define Your Objectives: Determine what you aim to achieve with your campaign. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, drive foot traffic, or promote a specific destination? Clear objectives will guide your campaign strategy.

Create Challenges: Develop a series of challenges or clues that participants must solve or complete. These challenges should be engaging and relevant to your brand or destination.

Select Locations: Use PicTrax to pin each challenge to specific geographic locations. Ensure that the chosen locations are publicly accessible and align with your campaign’s theme.

Set Rules and Prizes: Establish clear rules and guidelines for your treasure hunt, including eligibility criteria and instructions for participation. Determine what prizes or rewards will be offered to winners.

Promote Your Campaign: Use your marketing channels, including social media, email newsletters, and your website, to promote the treasure hunt campaign. Create anticipation and excitement among your target audience. You may use other methods to access virgin leads, such as broadcast media and social media advertising to like audiences to further your reach beyond existing contacts.

Monitor and Engage: As participants embark on the treasure hunt, monitor their progress and engage with them on PicTrax and your other social media channels. Respond to comments and provide support when needed. Encourage interaction with your existing social and owned platforms (website, facebook event page) to increase leads in your marketing funnels.

Analyse and Iterate: After the campaign concludes, analyse the results and gather feedback from participants. Use these insights to refine future treasure hunts and marketing strategies.

PicTrax’s treasure hunt feature offers a unique and effective way to engage audiences, create buzz, and promote your brand or destination. By combining physical exploration with digital interactivity, you can deliver memorable experiences that leave a lasting impression. With the right strategy and a sense of adventure, you can unlock new horizons and connect with your audience in ways you never thought possible.

Note: PicTrax is a paid app, with a single payment of AUD$5.99 ($ 3.99 USD) for app download and use. If you’d like to offer your competition participants a free code for app download, you may arrange this with a once-off campaign payment to PicTrax – giving you a free code to distribute to participants.

 

 

If this sounds interesting, here’s a complete step-by-step ‘how to’ to get you started with a treasure hunt campaign using PicTrax as the wayfinding tool
  1. Download and Install PicTrax: Begin by downloading the PicTrax app from the App Store (iOS) or Google Play Store (Android) if you haven’t already. Install the app on your mobile device.
  2. Log In to Your PicTrax Account: Log in to your PicTrax account using your registered credentials.
  3. Plan Your Treasure Hunt: Plan your treasure hunt, Where will they go, what will they find, what actions will they need to take? Create a location-by-location plan, including the code users will need in order to access the next destination.
  4. Ground Presence: Incorporate a physical component into your treasure hunt. For instance, participants may need to visit a specific location, such as a local business or landmark, to receive a spoken phrase or collect an object that acts as a clue.
  5. Immovable References: Alternatively, make use of immovable references at each site, such as the first letter of a sentence on a fixed sign or a distinct feature that participants need to locate. These references ensure that participants physically engage with each location.
  6. Object Collection: To further confirm on-site attendance, you may require participants to collect an object or token from each site. They can then present these items at the end of the treasure hunt to prove their physical presence at each location.
  7. Choose an Image for the Treasure Hunt: Your first clue may be provided via your social media channels that will direct people to PicTrax, or directly to the first destination itself to collect the initiating clue. Post an image to PicTrax that will serve as the next clue for your treasure hunt. This image should contain information or a unique code that participants need to decipher to progress in the hunt. Place this information or code in the description field of your post so it may be searched.
  8. Pin the Image to a Location: Utilise PicTrax’s GPS capabilities to pin the chosen image to a specific geographic location or pin it manually if the GPS metadata doesn’t exist.
  9. Upload Clues Out of Sequence: Instead of uploading all your treasure hunt clues in order and all at once, consider spreading them out over time. For example, you might upload the clues on different days or even weeks before the hunt begins. You may upload them out of sequence and keep them private until the campaign is ready to be launched. This staggered approach makes it challenging for participants to gather all the clues in one go.
  10. Utilise Different Accounts: You can use different PicTrax accounts to pin the destination or clues. As a result, participants won’t be able to access all the clues from a single profile.
  11. Declare Copyright and Accessibility: Confirm that you have the copyrights to the image and ensure that the pinned location is publicly accessible (paid or unpaid) in accordance with PicTrax’s policies, and include accessibility information.
  12. Set Privacy and Access Settings: Determine whether the image should be publicly accessible or kept private. You may choose to keep the images private until you’re ready to launch the campaign so users can’t access the content before you’re ready. Indicate whether you want to allow user comments during the treasure hunt. You may disallow comments so users can’t share clues publicly.
  13. Define Access Modes: Specify the type of access or transportation modes required to reach the pinned location. For example, participants might need to walk, hike, bike, or use a 4×4 vehicle to access it. Use PicTrax’s icons to denote these modes.
  14. Add Relevant Hashtags and Unique Code: Include relevant hashtags in the image’s caption or comment section to make it discoverable by treasure hunt participants. Additionally, insert a unique code or clue that participants must decipher to proceed in the hunt. The user can search for the precise, unique code (clue) to find the next destination.
  15. Test and Refine: Test your campaign as a participant by accessing your clues from your private images tab in your profile before launch so you can experience the treasure hunt from the participant’s point of view. Refine your treasure hunt where required.
  16. Publish and Share: Review all the details and settings of your treasure hunt within PicTrax. Once you’re satisfied, publish it to make it available to participants. Share the details of the treasure hunt, including the starting location and any rules or guidelines, through your social media channels and, to engage with virgin and non-social media focused audiences, broadcast media in the regions of participation.
  17. Monitor Progress: As participants engage with the treasure hunt using PicTrax you can stay engaged with participants by responding to comments and offering assistance or hints when necessary.
  18. Announce Winners and Distribute Prizes: When the treasure hunt concludes, determine the winners based on your rules and criteria. Announce the results and distribute prizes or rewards to the successful participants.

By following these steps and using PicTrax’s standard functions creatively, users can effectively facilitate a treasure hunt, adding an exciting and interactive element to your marketing or promotional initiatives.

Treasure hunts can be created for team building within large organisations, adding an extra level of engagement at festivals or encouraging next actions are taken on food and wine trails etc. How will your imaginative marketing, team building or customer engagement ideas make use of PicTrax as a wayfinding and navigation tool?

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions - PicTrax

Here you’ll find the answers to several frequently asked questions, designed to help you learn more about PicTrax and how to get the most from it. This section will grow as more questions are added, so if you don’t see an answer to a question you have, ask us in in our contact form at the bottom of this page and we will do our best to answer you.

Upload images to PicTrax from your mobile device:
1/ Tap on the ‘upload’ icon (plus button). You will find this button in the centre of the bottom navigation bar. PicTrax should open your mobile phone or tablet’s gallery.
NOTE: PicTrax may open your phone’s file structure. If that occurs, simply navigate to your device’s image gallery and album or sub folder.

2/ Tap on the image you wish to upload.
NOTE: We suggest ‘favouriting’ or ‘liking’ images in your gallery or saving to a specific folder for easy location. This helps save time later.

3/ If the selected image contains GPS metadata, the image will automatically be pinned to the capture location. If the GPS metadata is missing or incorrect, you can search for a landmark close to the capture location, and navigate to where you were standing by standard pinch zoom control. When the capture location has been found, tap the map to pin the location.

4/ Fill in the required info fields, or you may choose to change the image.

5/ When the upload form is complete, hit  ‘Save’ and your image will be uploaded to the private or public location as chosen.

NOTE: Navigating away from this window during the upload process may cause the upload to break.

6/ You will then be taken to your image’s ‘detail view’ where you may check the image, mapped location and info for accuracy, edit the information, make public (or private) or delete the image, or leave it as is.

Make money from PicTrax in three easy steps:

  1. Upload a travel pic you’ve taken of a worthwhile destination to PicTrax.
    NOTE: Images with embedded GPS metadata will be automatically pinned to their GPS capture location. If this is incorrect or not available, you can manually pin the image by navigating to the place you were when you took the pic, and tapping the map to pin the image.
  2. Tel friends and family to like your pics. Encouraging follows will increase likes.
  3. Go to your profile and you will see that your earnings have increased by the current ‘Like Action Value’. This will vary from time to time. You can check the current ‘Like Action Value’ here.

When your credits reach (AUD)$20 you can cash it in from the redeem your earnings page.

What can you do to increase your earnings further?

Encourage friends and family to follow you in PicTrax and like your pix. Each time a unique user likes one of your pix, your earnings grow. During promo events, the Like Action Value will increase. It will be particularly beneficial to gain as many likes as you can during bonus promo events!

Absolutely not! At PicTrax, we are ‘Team You’. The platform was built to assist people in the following ways;

  1. Increased awareness of the world and where to find amazing destinations.
  2. Making money from ‘Like Actions’.
  3. Opening an avenue for personal image sales to a potential global audience – via the ability to include a URL to your own online presence in the comments section.

PicTrax has no interest in claiming ownership of user uploaded images, however one or more user images may be seen in on screen video and screenshots taken for promotional purposes.

At PicTrax, we have taken steps to protect your rights by:

  1. Preventing images from being copied, downloaded or taken by screenshot. Images taken via screenshot will have a PicTrax watermark that will prevent the image from being used commercially.
  2. Requiring the uploading user to declare they have copyrights to the image.
  3. Allowing an avenue for reporting in the case that a user does upload an image that they do not have copyrights to.

If you would like to crop, enhance or otherwise edit an image prior to uploading to PicTrax, it is worth noting that some image editing apps will erase the GPS metadata.

We consistently use Snapseed for image enhancement prior to upload as this app retains the GPS metadata AND saves enhanced pix to a created Snapseed gallery folder/album, which allows for easy retrieval in the upload process.

There may be many other image editing apps that retain GPS metadata – please test on one image before committing to any specific image editing app.

Your personal information will not be retained by PicTrax so therefore it cannot be sold to a third party.

PicTrax does serve advertising. In some instances the advertising platform may match your device ID and match it with ad content that it considers relevant to your profile in their existing records.

PicTrax may use your email address to;

  • Communicate system information – you cannot unsubscribe from this as these communications may be required by law, i.e. updated terms of service notification in compliance with changes in legislation.

PicTrax may also use your email address to;

  • Advise of bonus ‘Like Action Value’ periods, or milestones in earnings, likes or other user to user activity.
  • PicTrax may also use your email address to communicate new developed features.

You will of course be able to unsubscribe from these emails.

If you are attempting to upload content in a low or intermittent data environment, the upload may break, showing a partial upload. If this occurs, please delete the image and try again at a later date, in a stronger data environment.

If the uploading device is disrupted through; going into ‘sleep mode’, moving away from the upload screen during upload, accepting a call during upload, the image may fail to upload correctly.

If this does occur, please open the image to detail view and use the elipsis menu in the top right of the image pane to delete the image, and attempt upload at another time.

Yes, in both iOS and Android devices, you will have the ability to apply a ‘heart’ to, or ‘favourite’ an image.

This will place the image in a ‘favourites’ folder which will be much easier to access than scrolling through years’ of photos to find the one you wish to upload.

Using the Snapseed app to enhance your images is a great way to separate your enhanced pix from the rest as Snapseed can save the enhanced pix to a Snapseed folder or album.

Manually moving images to a new folder for upload is another way to separate the images you wish to upload to PicTrax.

Many professional photographers have beautiful images they may wish to share on the PicTrax app.

In order to upload these images to PicTrax, the user must be able to get the images onto their mobile phone or tablet. Here are a few methods we can endorse:

Google Drive and or Dropbox: Upload images to Google Drive or Dropbox from your desktop and download to your phone’s gallery using the Google Drive or Dropbox app.

Direct connection: Connect your phone to your computer via USB or Bluetooth and transfer files to your device’s image gallery files.

Digital SLR WiFi: Many modern cameras, such as Canon, have apps that allow WiFi connection to the camera for remote camera control and image transfer. Check to see if such a method exists for your Digital SLR camera make and model.

Note: We advise saving images to a new folder/album created to receive these images or it may be difficult to locate them within your phone’s image collection.

Users may only delete any images that they themselves have uploaded.

You will find all images you have uploaded in your profile page. Your images can also be found in the main view by filtering on ‘my pix’. Pics that have been uploaded by the logged in user will be distinguishable by a small white dot in the bottom right of the thumbnail.

To delete any of your images, open any ‘owned’ image to ‘detail view’. To access detail view, tap on any image thumbnail in your profile’s ‘All’, ‘Public’ or ‘Private’ image tabs. Users may delete that image by hitting the on-image vertical ellipses icon (…) and selecting ‘delete’ from the resulting drop down menu. The ellipsis menu will be found in the top right corner of any image uploaded by the logged in user when seen in detail view.

NOTE: This will immediately and permanently delete images from the PicTrax platform and cannot be undone.

Users may make an image public or private at any time after upload, or during the upload process.

You will final all images you have uploaded in your profile page. Your images can also be found in the main view by filtering on ‘my pix’. Pics that have been uploaded by the logged in user will be distinguished by a small white dot in the bottom right of the thumbnail.

To change the public/private status of any of your images, open any ‘owned’ image in ‘detail view’. To access detail view, tap on any image thumbnail in your profile’s ‘All’, ‘Public’ or ‘Private’ image tabs. Tap on the on-image vertical ellipses icon (…) and select the correct status from the resulting drop down menu. The ellipsis menu will be found in the top right corner of any image uploaded by the logged in user when seen in detail view.

NOTE: No further action need be taken – the image will now be accessible in the public or private domain as stipulated.

Collections have been created to allow users to save and group their own, and other users’ pix together under a common destination, theme or topic. Creating collections will help when planning a trip, recording past journeys, or just categorizing your favorite images. You can create collections in one of two ways: #1 Create collections from Profile view 1/ Tap on the profile icon in the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. 2/ In profile view, you will see your collections grouped together under the first tab, labelled ‘Collections’. You will find an empty collection, ready to be named. 3/ Name the collection and when done, hit the ‘tick’ icon to save. 4/ Your newly created collection will now be available under the default, unnamed collection. #2 Create collections from detail view and adding a single image 1/ After tapping on an image you want to collect, you will be taken to ‘detail view’. 2/ Tap on the ‘collect’ (bookmark) icon in the under-image tool bar. 3/ Name your collection and hit ‘done’. You have now created a new collection and added the image to your new collection.

Save an image to one or more collections from detail view
1/ After tapping the on-map thumbnail of an iamge you want to collect, you will be taken to ‘detail view’.
2/ Tap on the ‘collect’ (bookmark) icon in the under-image tool bar.
3/ Name your collection or select and existing collection and hit ‘done’. You have now added the image to your collection.

You can edit your profile details by hitting the settings ‘gear’ icon. This icon can be found in the top right corner of your profile page.
Here you can:

  • Upload or change your profile photo
  • Tap in the editable fields and make changes to your details.

NOTE: Changing username may not be permitted if the username has been taken by another user.

Your image’s GPS meta data may be incorrect due to a number of factors such as;

  • Satellite coverage may have been insufficient at the time of capture, causing the mobile phone or GPS-enabled digital SLR camera to record incorrect data.
  • Your mobile phone’s position may have been determined by mobile phone towers which may have used a ‘triangulation’ method to determine your position at time of capture. This method of location mapping is less accurate than satellite positioning and any resultant images may not be placed correctly on the map.

NOTE: PicTrax advises users to routinely check their images info to make sure the image placement is accurate while in the field to ensure images captured will be placed correctly when uploading to PicTrax.

If your image is not automatically pinned on the the map on upload , it generally means your image’s GPS meta data may be missing or the uploading device’s privacy settings may prevent pinning. This can happen due to a number of factors such as;

  • The image has been saved to a device instead of having been taken with the device.
  • The device may have GPS location services disabled or may not be capable of capturing GPS location data.
  • The image has been saved from a social media account may have had the information erased in submitting to that platform.
  • The image is not an appropriate file type and has been removed by PicTrax admin staff.
  • The image is a screenshot and not an original capture.
  • The metadata may have been stripped by an image editing app such as Photoshop or Lightroom

Inappropriate content
If your image was reported for inappropriate content, your image will be reviewed by PicTrax admin staff and either removed from the platform if the image fails to meet PicTrax’s acceptable publishing standards, or made private, if deemed to be inappropriate for public viewing.
NOTE: No user action is required and no correspondence will be entered into after PicTrax admin action has been taken.

Breach of copyright
If your image was reported for breach of copyright, PicTrax admin staff will investigate the matter.
NOTE: To protect users from ‘internet trolls’, repeated and unfounded reporting may result in the reporting user’s account being deleted.

NOTE: PicTrax admin staff may contact both the user and the reporter to determine the most likely image copyright ownership status. Once PicTrax – through any investigative method deemed appropriate or necessary within Australian law – has determined the most likely owner, the image in question will be removed from the non-owner’s account and no further correspondence will be entered into.

Inaccurate location
If your image was reported for inaccurate location, your image may be made private to ensure other PicTrax users are not directed to wrong locations.
NOTE: No user action is required and no correspondence will be entered into after PicTrax admin action has been taken.
NOTE: No user action is required and no correspondence will be entered into after PicTrax admin action has been taken.

Poor quality or composition
If your image was reported for poor quality or composition, your image may be made private so that you may continue to enjoy your image while maintaining an enjoyable in-app experience for other PicTrax users.
NOTE: No user action is required and no correspondence will be entered into after PicTrax admin action has been taken.
NOTE: PicTrax users, through the acceptance of PicTrax Terms of Service, have agreed to abide by PicTrax acceptable use parameters and multiple breaches or numerous nuisance reporting as well as multiple breaches of PicTrax usage guidelines may see that users’ profile deleted from the platform and potentially banned from PicTrax with no further correspondence being entered into.

PicTrax needs the GPS location data (automatically stored in many digital images taken on mobile phones and or cameras) in order to plot the image on the global map so that others may discover the location for themselves, or so that you can plot your private journeys on a global map.

This is the true purpose of PicTrax and images that are not of destination specific subject matter may be removed from the platform.

What data does PicTrax collect from digital images?

PicTrax will access and use the following info from images you upload to the platform to help other users be able to find the location and replicate the image’s capture conditions. These include:

  • Time of capture
  • Date of capture
  • Device used (mobile phone or digital SLR make and model)
  • Device photographic settings at time of capture, ISO, f stop etc.
  • GPS Longitude recorded at time of capture
  • GPS Latitude recorded at time of capture
  • Device orientation at time of capture

There are several reasons an image may be removed from PicTrax after upload. These can include;
1/ Lack of copyright
2/ Inappropriate or explicit content
3/ Poor composition
4/ Non destination specific subject matter

Note: This platform differs from Instagram in its destination specific nature. For this reason, uploaded pictures of people, food, animals or objects that are not destination specific and do not add to the travel and photographic exploration experience for other users may be deleted from the platform.