Kentucky State Police (KSP) is tapping into Cyberspace through social media sites like YouTube©, Facebook©, and Twitter© to entice new recruits to join the agency. KSP Commissioner Rodney Brewer announced today that the agency launched its first of several recruiting videos via YouTube.
“Social Media has become a crucial part of how we interact with each other and it accelerates the dissemination of information to the public,” says Brewer. “This is the way our society is now, especially with our younger generation – they want immediate notification.”
The KSP are accepting applications for Troopers through October and are tapping into multiple social media formats to get the word out.
“We are excited to launch the KSP YouTube channel with the goal of tapping into the millions of visitors who view that site daily,” adds Brewer. “Marketing our agency through venues like this is a great opportunity to not only increase social chatter but a very cost effective way of marketing when budgets are already stretched thin.”
KSP currently has several social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and a Blog located on Blogger.com.
Lt. David Jude is the Commander for the KSP Public Affairs Branch and has implemented these social sites in an effort to broaden the reach the agency has on the community.
“Social Media is not a fad,” says Jude. “It will continue to evolve and it is important for agencies to recognize this in order to stay ahead of the curve.”
“With millions of visitors a day, YouTube is a fantastic marketing tool for our Recruitment Branch. The addition of this page will enhance our current social media formats and drive traffic to our agency webpage.”
The ‘KSP TV’ YouTube channel is located at http://www.youtube.com/user/kentuckystatepolice where viewers can watch the new recruiting video online.
Website-Monitoring.com posted recent YouTube statistics that show the potential for success when marketing through YouTube. This site currently exceeds two billion views a day and averages 24 hours of video uploads every minute. The average person spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube.
Jude says one of the unique things about social media sites is that it allows the public to see a different side of the agency and explore some of the unique projects KSP is involved in.
“This first video takes an important process such as recruiting new troopers and blends in a little humor to make it more appealing.”
Other projects KSP has promoted on their social media sites have been Trooper Island Camp, Unsolved Case Playing Cards, Citizens Police Academy classes, Missing Persons cases, and a National Conference the agency hosted.
“We strongly recommend it to other law enforcement agencies,” says Jude. “There is not a faster medium to disperse pertinent information then cyberspace.”
Jude encourages the public to visit KSP social media sites and to share their thoughts and opinions about what the agency posts.
“One of the reasons we have had success with social media, is that we allow for an open forum. If someone disagrees with us or shares a critique of the agency, that is their opinion – and we respect that.”
KSP currently has 33,809 followers on Facebook, 1,947 followers on Twitter, 2,900 views on Flickr and the Commissioners Blog has had 7,265 views.
If you are interested in checking out the KSP social media sites, you can click on the following links.
KSP Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kentucky-State-Police/103979825675
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/kystatepolice
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentuckystatepolice/
KSP Blog “Did You Know That?” http://kentuckystatepolice.blogspot.com/
KSP Website: http://www.kentuckystatepolice.org/
For more information about Kentucky State Police social media sites please contact the Public Affairs Branch at (502) 782-1780.
