If you are a content producer, department head, or someone else affiliated with Brown, who is interested in social media, you may use the chart below to determine which social media tools might fit your needs.
Navigate quickly to: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, iTunes U, or LinkedIn.
Comparison Chart
| YouTube | Flickr | iTunes U | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Post text updates and links | Yes | Yes | -- | -- | -- | Yes |
| Upload and share photos | Yes | As a link | -- | Yes | -- | -- |
| Upload and share videos | Yes | As a link | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- |
| Download videos | -- | N/A | -- | -- | Yes | -- |
| Upload audio; host podcasts | -- | -- | -- | -- | Yes | -- |
| Receive and respond to comments | Yes | Indirectly | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Delete users' comments | Yes | -- | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| "Friend" or "follow" other users | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | -- | Yes |
| Create and moderate events | Yes | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| Free for content managers | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited storage |
Yes | Yes |
Facebook is one of the most popular social media sites, used to stay in touch with friends, family, groups, and organizations. Users can play games (apps) alone or with each other, post pictures or status updates, join groups to discuss shared interests or to plan events, spread news about current events; sign up for discounts from organizations; or chat with others through a built-in instant messaging interface.
If you plan on representing a department or group at Brown on Facebook, we recommend that you set up a Page instead of a Group. For information about the difference between Pages and Groups, see this official Facebook blog post on the topic:
While Pages were designed to be the official profiles for entities, such as celebrities, brands or businesses, Facebook Groups are the place for small group communication and for people to share common interests and express opinions.
If you already have a personal Facebook account, or if you would like one, you may create a Page from that account and become its administrator. Your name will not show up publicly on the Page; non-administrators cannot determine the identity of an administrator of a Page. You also have the option of creating a Page without linking it to a personal account. You can do so from the Facebook homepage while logged out.
Once you have a Page, you should customize it and begin populating it with content before publicizing it. For advice on customization, appearance, appropriate content and publicizing, you may set up an appointment with a social media advisor at PAUR by emailing paur_web@brown.edu.
Twitter is a free service that allows anyone to post or send out "tweets," which are 140-character messages posted on a user's Twitter page. Such tweets are used to update friends and followers, mobilize movements, spark discussion, or raise awareness. The power of Twitter lies in easy and immediate accessibility to a potential audience, the brevity of posted messages, the speed at which information may be transmitted, and the ability to update from multiple times a day to less than once a month.
To maximize your use of Twitter and engage with the community of other users, you may utilize both retweeting and hashtags.
Retweeting is similar to forwarding an email to others. If you are signed in to your Twitter account and see a tweet that you would like to post on your own wall, with attribution, hover over the tweet and click the Retweet button. The other user's post will then appear on your own wall, with their name and picture, and will also show up to any users who are following your account.
Hashtags, which are words or phrases preceded by the pound sign (#), are useful for driving discussion or conversation around an issue or idea, as well as for categorizing posts. They are like subject lines in emails or tags added to blog posts. When hashtags are used by many people within a short amount of time, they become "trending" and show up on Twitter's trending list. Some examples of hashtags are:
- #VU2011 - Vanderbilt University's Commencement hashtag, used to celebrate their commencement and populate the tweets on the event main page
- #FollowFriday - by tradition, users on Friday can post the account name of a user whom they would like other users to follow, along with this hashtag
- #childhoodmemories - a tag encouraging people to share memories from when they were young
You may also tweet at users by using the @ sign before their username, such as: "@brownuniversity: I will miss you when I graduate!"
Twitter is a great tool for quickly reaching an audience, but care should be taken to post tweets regularly to keep others engaged. There are dozens of applications that integrate with Twitter and can simplify your Twitter experience, both browsing and posting; for help with your account, contact paur_web@brown.edu.
YouTube
YouTube is a video hosting site used by people, groups, and organizations to upload, share, and store video clips and movies. Its educational partner, YouTube EDU, is used for lecture-style educational content from schools, colleges, and universities. Brown has an account with YouTube EDU, which allows it to upload videos longer than the 15-minute limit imposed on regular accounts.
If you create a channel for your organization or department, it must be a regular YouTube channel and conform to YouTube guidelines on upload length and size limits.
Since 2011, all YouTube accounts must be linked to a Google account. You can either use your existing @brown.edu account or create a new Gmail account for your department. Either way, the email address you use with the YouTube account will not be visible to the public unless you choose to display it.
Flickr
Flickr is a photo- and video-sharing website owned by Yahoo!. Users can upload photos, tag them with keywords and locations, and add photos to groups (which are collections of photos from various users).
As an owner of a Flickr account, you may organize your photos into Sets and Collections. Sets are groups of photos and videos organized around a common theme, such as an event or,subject matter. Each photo can appear in multiple sets. Collections are groups of sets.
Once photos are in a set, you may embed them in a website or display them as a slideshow. You may also share photos and sets on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Blogger, and other sites straight from the Flickr website. There are multiple privacy levels for Flickr sets and photos: you may make them private, accessible only to certain contacts, or public.
iTunes U
iTunes U, like YouTube EDU, is the educational arm of iTunes. It hosts multimedia content, including audio and video files as well as PDF and ePub files. Files may be manually uploaded and hosted on the Apple server, or they may be read from existing RSS feeds. Content must relate in some way to Brown, although there is a broader range of acceptable content than on YouTube EDU. For a detailed overview of iTunes U, see the Administration Guide.
As a content manager, to be hosted on iTunes U you must request a Collection be created in the existing Brown University iTunes U site. To do so, email iTunesPublic@brown.edu with the details of the Collection you would like created and iTunes U administrators will get back to you with instructions.
Before creating a LinkedIn page, we encourage you to visit the Online Networking Hub of the Alumni Association. For more information, please contact Dorcey Baker.