California’s D.M.V. on YouTube

In a smart move made by the California Department of Motor Vehicles, they got into the YouTube craze and started adding videos to help everyone. Until now there are 55 videos, with the most popular ones being related to the different reasons why people don’t pass driving tests, such as lack of experience (8,600 views) and unsafe lane change (6,200 views).

The most viewed content is actually a tip on how to share the road with motorcycles, but it doesn’t even has 10,000 views. By looking at the number of video views, does it mean that the project wasn’t successful? Not really, if you take in consideration that: a) their main target are teens, and they spend a lot of time on YouTube; b) it is free advertising; c) videos can get popular in the long term; d) they share useful and high quality content, for free.

This is possibly one of the best examples on how to use the Internet to its full advantage, if it wasn’t for such a low participation…

Besides being featured on YouTube, the D.M.V. of California also has a MySpace page in which visitors can ask specific questions, and simply get the right answer quickly. Once again, they are using a social network site that plenty of teenagers also visit, making it easier to interact and make them aware to the dangers of driving, among other information. On the other hand, take a look a the number of MySpace friends they have (less than 100) and imagine how many more people they could reach.

Source – NYTimes

Guest post by Tiago of Gadgetizer