GCA Social Media - Calling for content creators - Geocaching Australia

[caughtatwork]

Maybe you're a talented videographer, or a caching enthusiast capturing breathtaking moments, an aspiring musician eager to showcase your compositions, or even a gadget lover with interesting cache builds. Come and help us create incredible video based social media to captivate and inspire others.

[Now_To_Morrow]

Are you looking for content of anything from everyone? Or are you looking for one or more people to coordinate the collection and publication of content of anything from everyone? Or are you just looking for someone to do the lot?

[caughtatwork]

All of the above

I think we would like to have a greater social media presence. I can't do it all. Having people "make content" that can be massaged together "collaboratively" into improving social media "presence" is the goal.

If you have video or photos that you would like to contribute as a content creator then we would look to see if you wanted to create the entire content or work with someone else.

If you are a video editing wiz and want content to put together into compelling content then we would look to get you collaborating with that content provider.

If you are a music composer for backgrounds on video, then we want that "stuff" and you get presence.

If you would like to help wrangle the cats to get it all happening then you're also wanted.

But we can't have it all funnel to one person to put together. It would probably need to be done as a collaboration with different people coming together and then separating as they collectively create that content for GCA.

There would be agreed guidelines on things to include, such as logo, link, length, etc, to make sure the content is branded at GCA or even co-branded as GCA and "person A" and "person B".

I would love to have a regular feed of content, but no less than weekly. We (I) have been trying to create content on a weekly basis since August last year and it's fun, but it can also be demanding and at time overwhelming. I also have a full time job and so don't want to spend all of my time coding, content creating, looking into the future and being a family man, caching and working. Too much.

So if you are interested and there are some others interested we can try and work out how we can get content created, branded, distributed with an intent to encourage more people to come and play the fantastic game and cache types that no-one in the world other than GCA offer.

[mattyrx]

I’d like to contribute and help with this.

I’ve been on a few good adventures lately – hiding GCA caches, and finding GCA caches and trigs. I think I easily take some good video and edit it/upload it myself, or forward to someone else that would like to manage the editing and uploading.

Creating some content showcasing our games, dragonZone, different cache types and all the other things that makes us stand out above other caching sites could be a bit of fun too.

I think we could all agree that social media is probably the best way for us to get the GCA message out there. It could be enjoyable creating some content and helping with this - especially if there’s a few people wanting to work together.

[wayn0]

I don’t know anything about the social media world but if a call comes out for specific images I could have a look in my library and make some available. I take a lot of them when geocaching.

[Now_To_Morrow]

I saw this posted on instagram so I assume it was on Facebook too. Any feedback there to share?

I'm keen to work with others to fulfil this.

[caughtatwork]

There has been no feedback from FB or IG.

Happy for you start the chat about what sort of content we can create. It will have small items we need, such as it being GCA identifiable (links and colors or logo), it shouldn't been "too long", it should credit the creator wherever possible, content MUST be free for us to use.

So from the people that have provided feedback, talk, discuss, suggest, make, improve

[Now_To_Morrow]

I guess we could start with...
Can someone suggest a place we can all upload resources that can be shared? I think it might be a good place to start at least if we had a place to pool resources that we don't mind others using, altering, etc, for the purpose of advertising geocaching/GCA.

I've been part of a creative project come production company of sorts called HITRECORD https://hitrecord.org/ for many years. I don't use it anymore but people still use my stuff. But the point is, people can upload music, videos, photos, graphic art, animations, written pieces, ideas, you name it, and other users can access it and mix it up to make things. This is a great idea that I think could work for this thread topic purpose. We just need that place to safely share stuff and somewhere to discuss between us what we can and will do with it.

[caughtatwork]

Love that. You can also use the GCA Gallery.
https://geocaching.com.au/gallery/

They are all CC-BY-NC-SA
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/

[mattyrx]

Here’s a few ideas on some content I think could benefit us:

1. How easy it is to geocache here.
• I’ve heard a few comments in my time from non-GCA cachers saying they don’t know how to go about finding stuff on our site. These are folks that have never used a GPSr and want their phone to point them in the direction of the nearest cache with minimal input from the cacher. I think a series of quick videos explaining the process of generating and uploading a GPX file from most of the popular phone apps would be beneficial to cachers that are curious to join GCA. One video per app. E.g. How to find GCA caches with Cachly, How to find GCA caches with c:geo. Maybe a video about GA Cacher too. Videos should be no longer than a couple of minutes, or people may get bored and swipe away to the next one.

2. How it’s more fun to geocache at GCA.
• Videos of people finding trigs, gadget caches and other cache types that GC don’t have. Video of the preparation – using the GCA site to identify the cache, the hunt and then logging.
• Videos of people creating caches, then going out there to hide them. Content showing how easy it is to have your cache published at GCA – no reviewer, and the ability to Future Publish if required.
• Content of our games. Explanations of how they work, some hype videos prior to the game, leaderboard updates during the game period and at the end, a collage of gallery items and commentary about the activity to summarise the whole thing. Let the folks know that if you missed out on participating in this game, be sure to get onboard with the next one.

3. The benefits of being part of the GCA community.
• Content about how your ideas and input can shape the direction of GCA
• Content encouraging the supporting an Australian volunteer site, rather than an American commercial one.

As for the format of the content, I’d find it easier to create some video I think – I used to love binge watching geocaching videos online when I first started caching. Nothing like watching an exciting geocaching video of a good location and a good hunt – especially if the narrative is good too. I remember I came across some GCA caching videos, ‘Whoop We Found It’ and ‘Where the H#ll is…” and was very curious to find out what the madness at GCA was all about.

If all goes to plan, I’ve got a trig/caching day planned this weekend that could make for some good video snippets. I’ll give it a go and see what I can come back with.

[Now_To_Morrow]

And I've got over a terabyte of geocache adventure footage, never seen by anyone but myself and I'll never use, that I'd be willing to share. Probably a third of that would be actual GCA caching.

[caughtatwork]

Here’s a few ideas on some content I think could benefit us:

1. How easy it is to geocache here.
• I’ve heard a few comments in my time from non-GCA cachers saying they don’t know how to go about finding stuff on our site. These are folks that have never used a GPSr and want their phone to point them in the direction of the nearest cache with minimal input from the cacher. I think a series of quick videos explaining the process of generating and uploading a GPX file from most of the popular phone apps would be beneficial to cachers that are curious to join GCA. One video per app. E.g. How to find GCA caches with Cachly, How to find GCA caches with c:geo. Maybe a video about GA Cacher too. Videos should be no longer than a couple of minutes, or people may get bored and swipe away to the next one.

c:Geo is a pain in the ass. I just installed it and regardless of which site I am trying to use, the menu options simply aren't there. I cannot, for the life of me, work out how to "offline log" a cache, any cache, any site. Once I know how that works I assume that field-notes would be created. Still doesn't make for a nice integration to our site. We have almost the same API as opencaching ( cause I stole our from them ), so this should be simple, but I don't know whether the c:Geo folk are up for that sort of integration. If anyone can help work out how to make c:Geo work off line I would be grateful.

GACacher is fully integrated (obviously). If someone was up for this we could work on a set of scenes where we grab screen recordings of (say) opening the app, logging on, get the list, show the screens, follow the arrow, log (add image), etc. Then we can either voice over or text over.

[Now_To_Morrow]

GACacher is fully integrated (obviously). If someone was up for this we could work on a set of scenes where we grab screen recordings of (say) opening the app, logging on, get the list, show the screens, follow the arrow, log (add image), etc. Then we can either voice over or text over.

I use this app to find caches but can't really help here. I use it for the map but once found I select 'show in browser' to log it because I've had too many issues logging from the app in the past. Images not going through and only part of a long log going through for example. And then there's the fact that it doesn't automatically capitalise the start of a new sentence, but that's just a personal annoyance.
And my screen protector is cracked. I'm waiting for one more major crack before replacing it, so I can't film it in my hand, just screen record. I might get to do a bit of that tomorrow.

The problem still remains as to where we can share film footage, sound files, and high quality images.

[mattyrx]

I'm happy to get a few shots of the app working in the field and some screenshots too.

I haven't checked out hitrecord.org yet - will have a look and see what it's all about. I'm not sure how much space we'll need to start off with. Dropbox has free 2GB accounts and I think OneDrive has 5GB. If hitrecord can work for us and has free storage and it makes it easier to collaborate and share stuff then its worth checking it out.

[Now_To_Morrow]

Dropbox has free 2GB accounts and I think OneDrive has 5GB.

I'd have to create a new email account to use Dropbox free. I've got plenty of room to play on Google One though.
I recently had a video editing job that used frame.io and I've heard good things about it. But I'm not sure how much it costs and that would have to fall on our own heads if we used something like that because this is a volunteer run site, etc.

If hitrecord can work for us and has free storage and it makes it easier to collaborate and share stuff then its worth checking it out.

No, they were just an example I was giving of collaborating with others to create stuff. Anything we upload there is free for everyone on there to use, so that wont work.