One platform. Every story. Every audience.
SocialArchive brings together everything your institution needs to capture its history, organise it intelligently and put it to work. Whatever your role, the archive is where it starts.
SocialArchive is a broad platform because the institutions and teams we work with have broad and varied needs. An archivist digitising a 400-year collection has different priorities to a development director running a fundraising campaign, or a reunion organiser planning a milestone event.
Every SocialArchive implementation starts with a conversation. We configure the platform around your team, your archive and your goals, so you get exactly what you need, without the complexity you do not.
The platform works the way your team works.
BUILT FOR YOUR NEEDS
Everything your institution has ever created. In one place.
CAPTURE
Most institutional archives are scattered across hard drives, filing cabinets and in the memories of their community. SocialArchive gives every team a single, secure home for every photograph, document, yearbook, film, audio recording and community memory. Built to last and built to be used.
Capture from every source. Not just your own collection.
Your institution's archive only contains what was officially documented. But your community holds everything else. Photographs taken on personal cameras. Programmes kept in drawers. Stories that were never written down.
SocialArchive lets alumni, staff, students, parents and community members all contribute directly. Spoken Stories captures audio, video and written memories remotely using guided prompts. Every submission passes through a moderation workflow before it goes live, so your team stays in full control.
Multiple file type support
Photographs, documents, PDFs, audio, video, yearbooks — SocialArchive accepts all major file formats and preserves originals alongside display copies.
Bulk and individual upload and download
Drag and drop individual files or bulk ingest entire collections with automatic folder replication. Get material into the archive quickly and get it back out to harness whenever and wherever you need it.
Separate storage and publication
Your preservation masters are held securely and separately from published content — giving you complete control over what your community can see and access.
Spoken Stories
Capture audio, video or written memories from anyone in your community using guided prompts — remotely, at events or on site. No equipment or scheduling required.
Community uploads
Alumni, parents, staff and students can contribute their own photographs, documents and memorabilia directly into your archive, with full moderation before anything is published.
Event capture
Set up QR codes or devices at events to capture photographs and stories in real time. Everything uploaded at the event goes straight into your archive and moderation queue.
Find anything. Protect everything.
ORGANISE
An archive is only as useful as its ability to surface the right content at the right moment. SocialArchive's organisation tools make every photograph, document, recording and memory instantly findable, while giving your team complete control over what gets seen, shared and downloaded.
Facial recognition across your entire collection.
SocialArchive groups faces across your archive automatically. Once someone is identified, every photograph of that person becomes instantly searchable and tagged.
Your community can help fill in the gaps, with alumni identifying themselves and each other. Over time, this transforms your archive into a living, continuously enriched resource, becoming more complete, more accurate, and more valuable with every contribution.
The same technology also supports redaction, masking individuals who have not given permission to appear in published photographs, or restricting current photos to specific parent groups.
Multi-level folder structure
Hierarchical organisation to archival standards — fonds, collections, series, sub-series and items. Structure your archive to meet professional standards and your institution's needs.
Content tagging and search
Rich metadata fields, custom taxonomies and full-text search across your entire collection. Find any photograph, document or recording in seconds, however old it is.
Optical Character Recognition
OCR makes every word in every document and image searchable — scanned letters, programmes, yearbooks, handwritten notes and historic records all become fully indexed and discoverable.
Audio and video transcription
Automatic transcription of audio and video content — oral histories, speeches, Spoken Stories recordings and archive footage become searchable text with timestamps.
Audience download restriction
Control whether community members can download content, at gallery, collection or individual item level. Your archive stays in your hands.
Redaction
Mask sensitive information within photographs and documents before publishing. Names, faces, personal details — redact at item level without altering or overwriting the original file.
Watermarking
Apply watermarks to published content to protect ownership and discourage unauthorised use or reproduction of your archive material.
People management
Attach names, biographies, year groups and custom data fields to identified individuals — building a growing record of every person who has ever been part of your institution.
AI content moderation
AI-assisted review of all user-uploaded content and comments — keeping your community archive safe and appropriate without creating overhead for your team.
Everything you need to put your history to work.
ACTIVATE
Every alumnus. Their own story to discover.
When a community member logs in to SocialArchive, the platform automatically generates a personal gallery of every photograph in your archive that features them. No searching. No guessing. Just a collection of moments from their own history, waiting for them when they arrive.
For many alumni, this is the first time they have ever seen photographs of themselves from their school or university years. It is one of the most powerful engagement triggers on the platform.
Where fewer people have been identified in your archive, community members can upload a photograph of themselves on sign-up. SocialArchive automatically matches it against your entire collection, creating a personal gallery from the moment they join.
As new content is added to the archive, every personal gallery is automatically updated. The more your archive grows, the more powerful the experience becomes.
An organised archive is the foundation. Activate is where it comes to life.
One platform that brings your community and content together, driving engagement, strengthening connections, and extending the impact of every moment.
Fully branded community portal
A fully branded digital home for your community. Publish curated galleries from your archive, share content and build meaningful connections.
Role-based permissions and access control
Define exactly what every user group can see, upload, comment on and download. Every audience gets an experience tailored to them, with your team in full control.
Contact management and user database
Build and manage a complete view of your community, with custom fields, groups and communication history in one place.
Gallery and album creation
Create and publish curated galleries in as little as three clicks. Static or dynamic, public or private, with unique URLs for sharing, embedding and tracking engagement.
Comments, conversations and notifications
Community members can comment on archive content, reply to each other and receive notifications when conversations continue.
Channels and direct messaging
Dedicated channels for year groups, clubs and interest groups, plus direct messaging between community members and between members and your team.
Publishing and video creation
Schedule and publish content to Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn without leaving SocialArchive. Create archive videos in minutes or use Canva to produce fully designed, on-brand content.
Virtual Spaces
Create interactive tours of your institution's spaces, layered with archive photographs, spoken memories and historical context. Accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world.
Digital time capsule
Seal voices, photographs and stories with a future opening date. Set staged releases to build anticipation ahead of your next milestone.
Events and attendance
Create event pages, manage registrations and track attendance, all connected to the archive content and community profiles that make every event feel personal.
Campaigns and fundraising
Send targeted email campaigns enriched with archive content, track fundraising and process payments via Stripe and PayPal. Connect your history to the moments that drive giving.
Reporting and analytics
Gallery interaction metrics, user-level engagement reports, campaign performance and customisable email reporting, everything your team needs to understand what is working.
Works with the tools your institution already uses.
INTEGRATIONS
SocialArchive connects with your existing CRM, database, payment, design and communications platforms. Custom integrations are available on request.
Connect SocialArchive directly to Canva and push historical photographs, Spoken Stories and community content straight into your branded templates. Create newsletters, social posts, fundraising appeals and event collateral in minutes - without leaving your archive.
Need a different integration? Talk to our team →
Everything in the platform.
COMPLETE FEATURE REFERENCE
A complete reference for every feature available in SocialArchive. Not every team will use every feature, your implementation is configured around your needs.
- Multiple file type support (photos, documents, audio, video, PDF)
- Drag and drop content upload
- Bulk upload with automatic folder replication
- Multi-level folder structure
- Separate content storage and publication
- Bulk or individual content download
- Spoken Stories — remote video, audio and written memory capture
- Guided prompt recording for any community member
- Community uploads — photographs, documents and memorabilia
- Event capture via device or QR code
- Full moderation workflow before publication
- AI-assisted content moderation
- Optical Character Recognition — all documents and images made searchable
- Audio and video transcription with timestamps
- Content tagging and custom taxonomies
- Detailed full-text content search
- Content highlighting for identification
- Facial recognition across entire collection
- Community identification of faces
- Photo upload on sign-up matched automatically against entire collection
- Custom people data fields and biographies
- System-generated personal galleries per individual
- Redaction of sensitive information at item level
- Watermarking of published content
- Download restriction at gallery and item level
- Hierarchical folder structure to archival standards
- Dublin Core and standard metadata schema support
- Bespoke branded community portal
- Role-based permissions and access control
- Tailored content views per audience group
- Comprehensive user database and management
- Custom user groups
- Two-factor authentication
- GDPR-compliant consent management
- Personal 'That's me' galleries, auto-generated per community member
- Automatic gallery updates as new archive content is added
- Gallery and album creation in as little as three clicks
- Static and dynamic gallery types
- Public, private and hybrid publication
- Unique URL generation for all published galleries
- Scheduling of go-live and expiry dates
- Automatic video creation from archive content
- Canva integration
- Virtual Spaces interactive tours
- Digital time capsule with staged release functionality
- Comments and replies on archive content
- Notification alerts for new comments and replies
- Integrated mass email, sending and tracking
- Direct sharing of content to social media
- Social media scheduling
- User to user direct messaging
- Dedicated community channels
- Campaign and fundraising tracking
- Payment processing via Stripe and PayPal
- Event pages and attendance management
- Gallery interaction metrics
- User-level content interaction reports
- Customisable email reports
- Campaign performance analytics
- Full user management and audit trail
GET IN TOUCH
Ready to see it in action?
Book a demonstration tailored to your institution. We will show you exactly how SocialArchive would work for your archive, your team and your community
“As a history teacher, I have always been aware of Brentwood School’s significant and long past. Of course, within this history are the people and stories that are central to our community and identity.
The challenge was to find a way to present this in a way that wasn’t static, to make it dynamic with something that invites engagement.
SocialArchive has given us that platform, to bring our archive to life, making it interactive, accessible, and scalable for the future. Seeing so many people sign up and explore in just a short time proves how powerful our history is when combined with the SocialArchive!”
“
HEADMASTER, BRENTWOOD SCHOOL