As social media channels have evolved, so has CHM’s digital community. Today, we have nearly 400,000 followers across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and X. We’re always looking for interesting artifacts, people, and ideas to share, and we love to hear from our community. Social media is a way for CHM to connect and engage with fans outside of the physical Museum.
How do we decide what to post about? It’s both an art and a science. We use data, but we also rely on the experience—and instincts—of our social media coordinator. Our curatorial and collections colleagues offer ideas, and we have expert consultants that help us analyze and respond to both long- and short-term trends.
CHM’s YouTube channel serves as a vast repository of our digital offerings—videos of CHM Live events, oral history interviews, and archival footage. Our community appreciates this longform, primary source content, but we wondered if we might be able to capture new audiences by repackaging our content. And CHM Bytes was born!
With a generous grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, CHM engaged Send It Story and Strategy to conduct an in-depth analysis of our existing audience demographics, research successful video strategies, and create special 10-minute deep-dives into particular topics to test out a new format.
First, they identified the subgroups of our “true fans.”
With a clear understanding of CHM’s existing audience on YouTube, Send It Story and Strategy then began developing and filming six new videos designed for true fans that offer special stories featuring the Museum’s collection, exhibits, and staff.
Explore the first four test stories below.
In this video, CHM VP and Chief Curatorial and Exhibitions Officer Kirsten Tashev takes us on a journey through time, revealing the deep roots of our hopes and fears for AI.
Watch on YouTube here.
Join CHM Senior Curator Dag and Exhibit Developer Kiera as they go behind the scenes at the Museum and decide on their top artifacts from the ‘90s.
Watch on YouTube here.
CHM released long-secret interviews with the founders and investors of Siri, a company that figured out agentic AI in 2010 but whose potential was never realized after being bought by Steve Jobs.
Watch on YouTube here.
The History of Wearables is Stranger Than You Think
Why have wearable computers, a dream for over 60 years, proven so challenging to perfect? Join curator Marc Weber on his Caltrain commute as he explores the fascinating history of putting technology on our bodies.
Watch on YouTube here.
Look for more test videos in the coming weeks, and please share your thoughts in the comments on CHM Bytes.
The next part of the experiment will focus on analyzing the overall performance of the six videos, focusing on audience demographics and engagement metrics. Send It Story and Strategy will produce a comprehensive report detailing the performance of the videos and provide recommendations for future content, including staffing and budget requirements and expected revenue generation.
In the meantime, we’ll continue to post inspiring and informative content on our other channels.
CHM has an active presence on social media in addition to YouTube. We engage with our digital audiences on the platforms where they like to interact, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and X. Get the inside story about our strategy from two key team members below.
Avneet Summan, Social Media Coordinator
“On CHM’s social channels, we aim to share stories and artifacts that spark curiosity and nostalgia. From classic computers to timeless games, we invite our audience to think about and remember the tech they used in their lives and careers and join the conversation.
“We try to keep our tone informative yet approachable, while leaning into trends that fit our brand. Ultimately, the goal is to make the past feel alive by thoughtfully connecting the past with today’s digital world.”
Emily Parsons, Marketing Manager
“To get a picture of our overall impact on social media, we measure both our reach—the total number of individuals who have seen our content—and engagement—the number of times users have interacted with our content via actions such as likes, comments, shares, and clicks. At the end of fiscal year 2025, we had over 239,000 followers on our channels, not including YouTube.
“While it’s always exciting when a certain social media post is a big hit (like this 1979 Xerox commercial reaching over 8 million people), we aim for consistent growth over time and we do see this year over year. Some of our most popular posts have featured archival footage from our collection that’s reformatted into short-form videos, like this 1980 clip of Steve Jobs (from one of our most popular YouTube videos).”
We hope you’ve enjoyed learning about our social media strategy. If you’d like to continue to explore, please follow us on your favorite channel(s). You can find direct links here.
