Using Social Flash FEEDER on PC or Mac to automatically add a custom frame and upload any camera image to your Social Flash Media account is seamless and easy.  This allows you to set up PORTAL as a customer facing photo sharing gallery that makes the branded images sharable.  Any photo, from any device or camera can be uploaded with FEEDER.  


First, you will need to install the FEEDER application on your PC or Mac computer.  


Step 1: Download the PC or Mac version of Social Flash FEEDER to the machine you will be installing on.  This is the Mac or PC that you will transfer your taken photos into a folder used by FEEDER.  Please request the FEEDER application download link for either PC or Mac from your account representative or emailing support@socialflashmedia.com.


For the purpose of this help desk article, we will show the Mac install process.


2. Once downloaded, click to open the 'feeder.dmg' file.



3. When the Installer window opens, simply drag the Feeder Icon to the Applications folder within the window.



4. Navigate to your "Applications" folder on your Mac.  Find and double click on the newly added 'Feeder' application to run.



5. Click 'Open' when prompted on the next window.



6. Now that the Feeder application is installed and launched, enter the account credentials provided by your account representative to login.  Credentials MUST be created specifically for FEEDER use and MOBILE license credentials can not be used for this application.



7. Upon logging in, your assigned promotions will download (red) and turn green when ready to run.



8. The next step will be to assign your "watched" folder for each promotion you have assigned.  This is the folder you will be dropping new photo files into to add your frame and upload to be used with that particular promotion.  To do this, click on the file explorer button to the right of the file string field to create and/or choose this folder.


9. After you have all of your promotions assigned, simply click on the 'Start' button to begin the feeder activities.  If you drop photos into your watched folder without the application active, photos will not be processed and will not upload.



A few insights and pro tips


  1. If you have a two promotions that are essentially the same EXCEPT for the photo template (i.e. Portrait vs Landscape layouts), you will assign both promotions to your FEEDER app and point both of the promotions to a single watched folder.  Any portrait orientation photo will be processed by the appropriate promotion that is watching for portrait orientation photos and likewise for the landscape orientation promo and photos.

  2. Feeder will only attempt to process and upload any particular file one time, and looks at the original file name to control this.  If you drop two photos into the watched folder that have the same name, the second one will not be processed and will show in the "new" count.

  3. After the application receives and processes your photos, it will automatically move and sort the photos to the sub-folders within each watched folder for housecleaning efforts.  Your original photo will NOT be deleted and will be moved to the 'originals' folder.  Below are the three folders the images will be sorted into depending on their current state:


  4. If you make changes to any assigned promotion, such as changing your photo frame or layout, there is no need to 'regenerate' the promotion file on the admin panel.  Simply log out of Feeder and log back in to pick up the promotion refresh.


Now, on any device you choose, open a web browser and navigate to portal.socialflashmedia.com and log in with your admin credentials (not your device license username/password) to view and share your branded images.  That's it!