Social Media Registry

What It Is

The Social Media Registry is a tool to keep track of social media accounts managed by federal agencies. It helps the public identify official agency social media accounts and helps federal agencies manage their social media efforts. The public-facing side is hosted on USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov, and the agency-facing side is hosted here on HowTo.gov.

The Social Media Registry also offers a series of APIs to allow developers to build applications with the data stored on the registry. Full documentation of the APIs is hosted on USA.gov.

Using the API, GSA has also built embeddable Twitter Widgets, a suite of dynamic widgets that aggregate tweets from across federal agencies and by topic. These widgets demonstrate the power of the Registry and the API—so anyone can access content from across thousands of federal social media accounts, updated in real-time.

Why It's Important

Agencies can use this tool to register their social media accounts and verify which social media accounts are “official” (similar to how Twitter “verifies” high-profile accounts). This will help the public to know and trust information shared via these official accounts.

Specific Requirements

The Social Media Registry only includes accounts that represent official U.S. government agencies, organizations, or programs. You can register accounts managed by federal agencies, elected officials (not campaign accounts), heads of agencies or members of the President’s Cabinet. Do not enter personal, employee, or other types of accounts. If you have any questions or comments, contact socialmediaregistry@gsa.gov.

How to Implement

Register a new account or edit an existing account.

Content Lead: Justin Herman
Page Reviewed/Updated: February 19, 2013