Exploring youth engagement in a digital age

What would you get if you had £500 to spend on a social media toolkit? (hardware)

I'm putting together a guide for the Commonwealth Youth Exchange Council on using social media as part of a youth exchange, and I wanted to include in there an idea of what sort of social media kit you could put together if you had £500 to spend.

Below is the list I've put together so far, but I was surprised to find it only comes to £440, and I think covers all the essentials I use in day-to-day social media work.

What would you add? What would you social media toolkit look like?

	A mini-laptop such as the Eee-PC is small enough to transport around with you – but powerful enough to handle small video clips, photo editing and blog writing. With a battery life of up to 10 hours, it can be ideal for taking on an exchange. http://tinyurl.com/y9fc8aj	Available from around £250.
	A flip video camera can take high quality video clips and has an in-built USB connector and video editing software. Using the built in memory it can record up to 2 hours of footage, before you need to copy the video to your mini-laptop for editing and uploading. http://tinyurl.com/yegl3ro >	Available from £90.
	A basic digital camera for keeping a photographic record of the exchange. Most digital cameras can also take short video clips as well, but lower quality than the flip camera. http://tinyurl.com/ycxv38j	Available form £60
	A pay-as-you go mobile broadband adaptor can plug into your mini-laptop to give you Internet access wherever you can get a mobile phone signal (in the UK). http://threestore.three.co.uk/	From £20 to buy, and then £10/top-up for pay-as-you-go.
	A network cable is useful if the laptop you bought has an RJ45 connector. When wireless Internet access is not available, this will let you plug into a network. http://tinyurl.com/ybfkq3u	Available from £1.50
	Batteries and Charger essential for keeping the flip camera and digital camera in action. http://tinyurl.com/y8sqf2q >	Available from £10

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Comment by Diane Law on January 5, 2010 at 10:36am: May be a voice recorder (or whatever they are called) with a potential to create podcast?

Comment by mas on January 3, 2010 at 8:30pm: Hi Tim - not sure what the purpose of the kit would be so not sure of what angle to make suggestions?

If it's for an exchange I'd be concerned with being able to backup photos. films etc. - easily achieved if you have good internet access, but if that can't be relied on I'd want an additional hard drive. For trips out to Africa we have a hard drive that allows memory cards to be plugged in and it backs up everything on them. I prefer this to doing via a pc as it's more portable, can be done instantly and it's reassuring to get things backed up as quickly as possible as there is always the risk of having something stolen or damaged.

From the 'social reporting' angle I think you've got things covered. Personally I'd still prefer to use something like the Sanyo Xacti so that you have the option of decent quality photos and films with the same device, cutting down the fiddle factor - also depending on the model the advantage of being waterproof allowing for filming outside in all weathers and being robust enough for clumsy hands.

A gorillapod is always handy to have.

Back to exchanges we've taken all sorts of laptops but rarely had good use from them - in the thick of things I've found photos and film tend to be most favoured so personally I'd lean more towards having a couple of cameras than a small pc.

In recent times some of our volunteers have tended to bring their own laptops so an alternative option for wireless could be the mifi - I haven't used one yet but have been considering investing for events.

As for your £60 underspend a notepad and pencil is probably still a worthwhile investment along with a good sturdy bag :-)