The advent and growth of social media policy in government has policy setters playing catch-up. Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites can be an excellent way for governments to keep its citizens abreast of current events and happenings. This new medium is about transparently, community sharing, and relationships- governments must understand they can no longer control the conversation, rather, they need to participate in the conversation, be honest and direct.

GovScan can be a useful way of tracking government policy for social media including Facebook and Twitter. To find policies set by various communities try using the following searches:

“social media policy”, Facebook policy, Twitter policy, and “comment policy”.