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Top advice from Campuslife As many people have just got comfortable with the social media sphere of Facebook, Twiter and maybe a bit of YouTube, 2013 has gone ahead and mixed it all up again by throwing a whole host of new social media sites and apps into the pot: Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Pinterest, Soundcloud and tumblr to name but a few. With this ever-changing sphere, you couldn't be blamed for geting a litle lost and confused by it all. 'Who's using them? Should I be using them? What would I use them for?' If you are asking yourself these questions, we have pulled together some students and asked them to tell us in their words what they are, how they use them and what they think of them.
Soundcloud Ben Conway, University of Leeds, English Literature
A 'YouTube for audio', Soundcloud has over 20 millions registered users, from big name acts and bedroom DJs to newspapers and universities.
How do you use it?
It's a tool for finding new music, sharing your own – even listening to lectures, podcasts and interviews. Soundcloud is integrated with Facebook and Twiter, meaning if you find something you like, it's easy to share.
tumblr Blogging without the effort, tumblr allows you to follow – and be followed by – millions of other users, sharing pictures, music, videos and text.
How do you use it? You can put entirely new content on tumblr, or simply use the 'reblog' function to fill your blog with whatever takes your fancy – as there's so much on tumblr, you will find things that interest you, whatever your taste.
Vine Jonathan Smart, University of Leeds, Economics
What is it?
A really short delivery platform of six- second videos that repeat on a loop. It's full of really creative and funny content but I personally don't think of it as a very social network.
Snapchat
A mobile app that allows you to share pictures and videos with your friends. When you send something you can choose how long they can see it for and then it's deleted forever which makes it quite fun! Like Vine, it's a purely content-based platform, so you communicate with images and video instead of words.
How do you use it? I've actually stopped using it. Snapchat was a good novelty for a while and I guess I joined it to see what everyone was up to. This soon wore off because it's impossible to hold a conversation on it. Would you follow your university if they used this platform? No, I think it would be prety pointless. It would be like sending an email that automatically deletes itself after I've read it – what if I needed that information again?
Instagram Claire Louise Sheridan, University of Liverpool, English and Communications
You post pictures documenting your life, and can easily access a range of
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Interaction is slim as it's much more focused on content rather than people.
How do you use it? I would class myself as a watcher more than a contributor. The same would be true of most of my friends. I think it's a great platform for video producers but not so easy for everyone to join in on.
Would you follow your university if they used this platform? Yes – it would be prety cool to find litle videos on there about where lectures are and things that are going on in my halls. I can see students geting on board with it and making their own litle clips.
images. It's easy to engage in discussion or to ‘like’ photos.
How do you use it?
Whether taking 'selfies', holiday snaps or pictures of your dinner, you can add filters to change the aesthetics as required. Hashtags categorise your pictures and encourage more 'likes' and followers. Alternatively, search hashtags to find the kind of images you're looking for.
Would you follow your university if they used this platform?
Successful 'hashtag' campaigns can be effective if incentive is offered. You can easily add any relevant (and suitable) pictures to the campaign.
Pinterest
An online pinboard for images of things you're interested in… see what they did there?
How do you use it? You can create and manage collections based upon particular themes, for example a band or a holiday season. Users can then browse other pinboards for images they're keen on, and 're-pin' or 'like' them as required.
Would you follow your university if they used this platform? It would depend how they used it – a good idea might be a collection of pictures of personalised bedrooms to give people ideas before moving in day.
And finally…
Much has been reported this year about Facebook suffering due to the growth of other social media sites. So we asked the students if they were turning away from Facebook in favour of new platforms and the answer was unequivocally… no. While 2013 has brought many new ways to communicate online, Facebook, Twiter and YouTube still remain comfortably as the big three. ET
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