Step 1 - Login & Register

a) Login

Use your Twitter account to login by clicking the button in the top right hand corner.

If you don't have a Twitter account, you can register for one at http://twitter.com/signup

b) Register

Choose a username for Social Hiking (it can be different to your Twitter screen name) and enter your name and email address.

If you wish, you can also choose to follow us (and our friends @viewranger) on Twitter, and sign up to our occasional newsletter - this is a good way to stay in touch with all the updates.

There are also a few key settings - you can change these, and loads more settings like managing your own comments and sending automatic updates to Twitter, once you have registered.

For help with registering, please get in touch on Twitter, Facebook or via our Customer Services Community

Step 2 - Location Sources

Now you need to setup your location source (you can use more than one!). To do this click the 'Location Sources' tab.

ViewRanger

For more information on getting ViewRanger, see www.viewranger.com. Social Hiking uses ViewRanger's BuddyBeacon feature - to set this up you need to create an account with ViewRanger. With help with this see www.viewranger.com/support. Once BuddyBeacon is setup, enter your username and pin in Social Hiking

You are recommended to set 'Send Old Positions' checked on your phone and to enable BuddyBeacon to record multiple locations (this is done via My ViewRanger portal

Instamapper

For more information please visit http://www.instamapper.com/

You will need to create an account with Instamapper to connect your phone and enable API access - once this is done, enter the API code in Social Hiking

SPOT

For more information on getting SPOT, premium satellite devices, see www.findmespot.eu

To add SPOT, you first need to create a public shared page on the SPOT portal - once this is done, copy the url of your SPOT page into the relevant settings under 'Location Sources'.

Media

Certain media, for example Twitter or Gowalla, can be used as a location source. This can be setup when you add a specific account (see Step 3).

For help with setting up any location source, please get in touch on Twitter, Facebook or via our Customer Services Community

Step 3 - Link Media

Now you need to link some media to Social Hiking. To do this click the 'Linked Accounts' tab.

Choose the accounts you want to link to your maps - you can add your own accounts or accounts of friends. The supported accounts are:

• Twitter / Mentions: Put your tweets on your map. Optionally specify a hashtag to give you control over what appears. Supports geo-tagging. You can also include your mentions to create a threaded conversation.
• Audioboo / Ipadio: Share audio with an embedded player on your maps.
• Flickr / Picasa: Connect your account to put your public photos on your maps. Also supports photo timestamps, so you can upload photos from your camera when you get home and they will still appear on your map.
• Bambuser: Share video uploaded on the move or when you are back in signal with an embedded player in your maps
• Twitter Photos: Connect your account to put your shared photos uploaded using Twitter's own photo service on your maps.
• Picplz / Smug Mug / Twitgoo / Twitpic: Connect your account to put your shared photos on your maps.
• Gowalla: Put your location check-ins on the map. Supports geo-tagging.
• RSS: Put your blog, or anything with an RSS feed, on your map.

For help with linking accounts, or to suggest a new account, please get in touch on Twitter, Facebook or via our Customer Services Community