The U.S. government has been engaging with social media, including YouTube, since 2009, when it signed Special Service Agreements with the major social networks to ensure compliance with federal terms and conditions. Also in 2009, YouTube unveiled its U.S. government video portal to showcase federal agency content.

Since that time, YouTube has played an increasingly important role in many federal agencies’ communications. While some agencies have experienced significant success using YouTube, others face challenges incorporating YouTube into their regular outreach efforts. Here are four federal agencies that are hitting their stride, along with a few helpful lessons.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has provided online video on its website for years. The use of YouTube and social media, however, is still relatively new for the agency — it’s been in the works for about a year and a half.

“There’s no debating that we’ve seen a tremendous increase in social media use,” says David Miller, director of corporate communications at the NOAA. “Clearly social media is in our communications arsenal and is going to continue to be.”

For an agency used to providing broadcast video to television networks, making the transition to YouTube isn’t necessarily a technical challenge, but like any organization, resources can be tight. As a federal agency, there are also compliance issues — such as closed captioning — to consider while prepping each video.

While NOAA wants to upload video in a timely manner, particularly in response to emergency situations such as Hurricane Irene, there are still logistical issues to overcome. For example, getting someone on a plane to the hurricane zone to videotape the situation can be challenging, as there are limited seats during these missions and many researchers with critical work to do. Still, Miller is optimistic that NOAA will upload current event videos more quickly over time.

NOAA currently has more than 800 subscribers to its YouTu

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is using YouTube to reach the broadest audience possible, says Carol Crawford, chief of the CDC’s Electronic Media Branch.

One of the first government agencies to adopt YouTube, the CDC has been uploading videos to the network since April 2007. Under the channel CDCStreamingHealth, the agency offers videos on topics ranging from immunization, smoking, HIV and many other diseases that the agency works to control, prevent and cure. And to increase accessibility, some videos are available in Spanish.

“The process for picking and publishing a video topic can be very organic,” explains Crawford. “Educators and communicators across our very large organization come up with an idea when they see a need.”

The agency’s 200 videos have been viewed more than 4 million times.

“We are happy about that,” says Crawford. “We want people to have access to good health information around the clock. I like to think that our users can watch a video on vaccination or smoking on their phone or tablet while they are waiting at the doctor’s office.”

The agency’s most popular videos were about H1N1 flu during the 2009 outbreak. The videos were nothing fancy — just CDC experts talking on camera — but people were worried and were seeking credible information from the CDC. During the peak of the H1N1 pandemic, the agency turned around one video per day to meet the demand for updates.

Crawford emphasizes the need to be thoughtful about using web video and incorporating it into an overall communications plan.

“Look at your audience and make sure a video is the right way to communicate to them. Make sure you have a plan to promote your video to your audience. And be sure to go back and evaluate your efforts,” Crawford advises. “Short and sweet is best — people don’t tend to watch long videos.”

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) joined YouTube nearly three years ago. Over time, the agency’s members realized they needed to modify what they were doing.

After their initial efforts, the USGS decided to turn off comments on their YouTube channel.

“At the time, we didn’t have the ability to monitor those comments as well as we would have liked. At some point, we may open that up again, but we need to step back and address the best way for us to approach that before we do so,” explains Scott Horvath, web and social media chief at USGS.

At present, USGS staff uploads videos first to their website in a multimedia gallery, and then posts it on YouTube shortly after. Horvath sees two benefits to using YouTube — the ability to post HD quality video, and the ease of embedding YouTube videos into other sites and networks.

The agency’s more popular videos tend to be ones uploaded from their original YouTube channel and often include animals as subjects — Hatching of a Mojave Desert Tortoise, Elk Licked My Web Cam, and Status of Grizzly Bears in Northwest, which showed bears during a DNA study that looked like they were dancing with trees.

Right now, the USGS is more active on Facebook and even more so on Twitter, but Horvath doesn’t discount the importance of being on YouTube to make his agency more accessible to the public. One barrier, he says, is that it’s difficult to upload videos in a timely manner.

“We need to look at how we can integrate video creation and production into our existing process to better respond to emergencies,” Horvath says.

Links to the USGS social media accounts can be found on the agency’s website.

NASA’s YouTube presence is among the top channels viewed on the network. During the Hubble repair mission, the NASA YouTube channel was number one.

“That’s an impressive accomplishment when compared to the major networks and entertainment organizations that are a part of the YouTube community,” says Robert Jacobs, of NASA’s Office of Communications. “Communities like YouTube are too large to ignore. I believe you need to have a presence there, and it’s given NASA an opportunity to reach people who might otherwise not know about the agency’s activities.”

When the last space shuttle launched, NASA had more than three-quarters of a million people watching the event live on NASA.gov. But residing just on the NASA website isn’t enough anymore.

“We know that there’s an excited audience out there wanting access to the video on YouTube. We turn news events around in a matter of minutes, including the STS-135 launch video,” says Jacobs, “Success of your social media effort is measured now, in part, by how fast you can turn around the video.”

Another example of fast turnaround took place when the President called the four Atlantis astronauts of STS-135 during the final space shuttle mission and the six Expedition 28 residents of the International Space Station.

While Jacobs acknowledges that people get excited about the number of views videos get, he says he learns more about what people think from the comments and questions they post on the agency’s YouTube channels.

“The whole point of these communities is to be a part of the conversation,” says Jacobs. “If you just post a video and walk away you’re wasting your time.”

NASA has had its share of viral videos, including a video from a NASA-produced documentary with William Shatner about the recent retirement of the space shuttle that hit over 90,000 views.

Another popular video was an animation of a Black Hole eating a star. NASA also produced a series of videoswith popular vlogger Hank Green around the theme that NASA “decreases the suck and increases the awesome.”

When Hurricane Irene was a breaking news story, Jacob says every science video and view of the storm from the space station was very popular, proving that timeliness matters.

“It is important to think of YouTube as a tool, not the tool. While it is important to be in this community, this is not a ‘one size fits all’ multimedia universe. Agencies should offer the same access on their own websites, etc.,” says Jacobs.

And it all should be integrated, he says. If you look at the NASA YouTube channel and @NASA on Twitter, the pages have the same look and feel as NASA.gov. The website also has a dedicated page to help users find all the agency’s social media offerings.

“NASA isn’t recognized as a leader in social media because some so-called expert or consultant told us what to do,” says Jacobs. “We’re a leader because we’re constantly looking for better ways to share our story… My job is not to market NASA. My job is to clean the windows so people get a better view and more access to their space program. They deserve it. After all, they pay for it.”