Social media technologies hold great promise in their ability to transform governance by
increasing a government’s transparency and its interaction with citizens.This document provides a selected overview of key issues, questions, and best practice government initiatives regarding social media technologies. Focusing primarily on Federal government efforts, this paper examines national efforts as an example of the ways in which governments are using social media to create transparency, potential benefits of these efforts, challenges such efforts encounter, and realism of the expectations of these efforts.