Exploring the use of social media by governments worldwide

New technologies are affecting many different aspects of life. Social media is one of these technologies, which has revolutionized communication between government departments and their citizens. There are many benefits that governments worldwide have gained by adopting social media tools but there are also some challenges that need to be addressed. The objectives of this research are twofold: 1) to explore the use of social media tools by different countries in different parts of the world, categorising them by speciality; and 2) to highlight the benefits and obstacles of using social media tools by government agencies. In order to achieve these objectives a systematic literature review was conducted. Relevant journal articles, conference proceedings, official documents and internet websites were searched and analysed. Through providing real world examples of how government departments worldwide are currently using such technologies to enhance their service offerings it is hoped that this work will help encourage governmental agencies opting to use social media to jump on the social media bandwagon and start taking advantage of such technological advancements.