YouTube Channels for Universities #1

The YouTube channel becomes an increasingly important part of universities’ social media tools given the fact that (a) it is the second largest search engine (after google); (b) it comes up during a google search; and (c) more and more students search their colleges on YouTube. The university channels, especially those enhanced channels, are equipped with advanced functions for educational institutions to use. My ten observed university channels reflect how different universities develop such social media tools to various degrees, and as a result, generate different level of impact on their audiences.

http://www.youtube.com/user/OhioStateUniversity

http://www.youtube.com/user/UnivPennsylvania

http://www.youtube.com/user/Arizona

http://www.youtube.com/user/UOregon

http://www.youtube.com/user/texastech

http://www.youtube.com/user/UniversityofVirginia

http://www.youtube.com/user/UHouston

http://www.youtube.com/user/CornellUniversity

http://www.youtube.com/user/UCDavis

http://www.youtube.com/user/UniversityTennessee

In general, all ten universities are aware of the two main elements of their YouTube channels: the video content and the channel design.

First, these universities, although to different degrees, strategically produce YouTube videos promoting the university image (through introductory videos), academic and research resources (through faculty lecture and speech videos, and academic department introduction videos), student life (through student made videos on sports, clubs, volunteering activities), and community networking (through community service activity videos, alumni event videos, and retrieved local news reports).

Second, their intentional channel design also shows that these universities are making effort to exploit YouTube for enhancing their popularity and impact among audiences. For example, most of the ten universities employ designed channel background (frames, colors, background pictures, school logos etc.) rather than the default layout provided by YouTube. They create well written descriptions and proper titles for each video, as well as introductions for themselves in “about me” section.