Kent State launched a new social media page, which is aimed to make it easier for students to keep up with university social media content.

The new site, named “A Smash Up,” will serve as a directory of all social networking accounts and link visitors to the newest content available from various social networking sites.

Lin Danes, director of web services and interactive media, said she hopes the new page will bring more attention to all of the content by putting it all together on one page. This includes social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

“We know that there’s a broad range of social media spaces at the institutional level and we know that also is true at the departmental level,” Danes said. “So we wanted to add some convenience for our end-users by putting them all on one site for everybody to search.”

Danes said the main goal is to increase interest and awareness of the many different sites that Kent State uses.

Danes said one portion of the site is a directory and another will get visitors to some of the more popular Facebook pages — all in an effort to increase visibility of new content.

“I would venture to say that not that many students have used our Flickr account,” Danes said. “But by accessing the site they will see that these different opportunities are out there that they might not take advantage of otherwise.”

The new social media portal will be accessible by clicking on a small social media icon at the bottom of all Kent State web pages. Prior to the launch students were required to click on separate links for Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.

Chris Antill, junior integrated mathematics major, said he knew that Kent State had a Facebook page, but was unaware of other accounts on Twitter and didn’t feel like the content was useful.

“I feel that Kent State is only trying to promote their content and so it isn’t relevant to me,” Antill said. “I’m not going to go on their pages to talk about Kent State stuff.”

Danes said the university will monitor the number of visits to the different sites each month to see if the new social media hub improves the visibility of all the different content, but they do not have any specific goals for new visitors.

“Any big spike is exciting,” Danes said.

Contact Evan Graening at [email protected].