Since the last presidential election we have all seen an explosion in the use of social media by politicians, government agencies, and elected officials. The conversations are exploding, but where can you find it all?

GovTwit claims to host “the world’s largest list of government agencies and elected officials on Twitter, tracking state/local, federal, contractors, media, academics, non-profits and government outside of the U.S.” GovTwit has political Tweetstreams, search functions, and a listing of those newest to the directory – the Prime Minister of Israel was newest as of the writing of this post.

Are you curious about who has the most Twitter followers among elected officials and news media figures? GovTwit has the List for that ranking. (President Obama tops the list, BTW, with 4,877,222 followers.) You can also search Youtube videos and twitpics, although I could not see how some of them related to politics. GovTwit also runs a  blog that is worth reading.

Another resource was brought to my attention through Eric Brown’s great blog – PoliticalActivityLaw.com. The site is called the Government and Social Media Wiki. This is huge! What you get on this wiki is a database of Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, LinkedIn, Youtube, and other social media accounts for – are you ready for this? – members of the U.S. House and Senate, U.S. House and Senate Committees, federal agencies, state Governors, and state government agencies and officials, with more on the way.

The wiki is run by Josh Shpayher, who says:

“My name is Josh Shpayher and GovSM is a hobby project of mine that grew out of some conversations I had with some like minded political and tech enthusiasts in the fall of 2009 regarding what were the ‘best social media practices’ of Congress. A point that was repeatedly noted was that in order to know who was doing the ‘best’ it would be necessary to determine who was using social media, if at all, and that turned into a long project that I have finally put together here.”

O.K., here is one more. There is a Web site called TweetCongress, whose goal is to get more members of Congress to be open, transparent, and accountable through the use of Twitter. I’ll let them speak in their own voice:

“We the Tweeple of the United States, in order to form a more perfect government, establish communication, and promote transparency do hereby tweet the Congress of the United States of America.”

Enough said. You will find here tweets, pictures, videos – everything social media has to offer.

Have fun with these sites, but I am sure there are many more resources out there. What have you found? Be sure to share it with us!