Feature: Add new social media URL fields (bluesky, TikTok, threads, mastodon) to database

[fancyham]

Context

A lot of organizations and people are leaving x.com (née twitter.com) for other social media platforms: bluesky, TikTok, threads, mastodon, etc.

We should start supporting these social media URLs on our website and in our database

How is it now?

We have a limited number of social media links, with specific services.

Proposed new feature

• First, think about how to add additional URLs to other social networks we should add. Organizations may be using BlueSky, Threads, and unknown new social media platforms etc.
• If no changes needed now, revisit this again periodically (suggest every 6 months).
  • This would be a good question to ask validation volunteers to look for and make notes or notify us somehow when they find new social media platforms in use.
• Add social media platform fields to our database as needed
• Expose URLs, with their icons, on the organization’s listing on the public site.

(Note: for URL validation purposes, Mastodon does not have a single domain name)

Discussion

We might want an array of social media links, rather than a single column in the database. We might recognize the major ones and expose dedicated fields for them, but for others, we might just have a list.

This list could be a multiline text field.

We should still check that the URLs are valid.

At this very moment, BlueSky is getting a lot of migration from people shutting down their X.com accounts, but that may be individuals, not organizations.

Also, we don’t currently support TikTok but it’s quite popular, though perhaps not for food pantries(?)

I am unsure of how many, if any, have moved to Threads or Mastodon.

Service providers will typically go where their clients and audience are, so BSky, Mastodon and Threads may not be popular enough yet.

Social media networks will rise and fall. Do any organizations actually use Pinterest, for example?

Long term: Think about how we might store these. Maybe there should be a stack of arbitrary URL fields rather than individual slots for a specific set of social media platforms.

References:

How do other services / sites enter and store this info?