The article reviews the results of the first monitoring of web pages of the federal executive authorities in social networks. We used as our hypothesis a theoretical conclusion of I. Mergel that the official government’s accounts in social networks are new channels of engagement and a tool to obtain additional knowledge from interested stakeholders. The aim of the research was to give expert evaluation of the implementation of principles and mechanisms of openness by the federal agencies. We developed special indicators according to three criteria: transparency of the implementation mechanisms, quality of feedback, involvement of citizens and accountability.

The article summarized the results of expert assessment of the quality of the federal agencies’ accounts in Twitter, Facebook, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Instagram, YouTube, LiveJournal. Additionally, we analyzed official pages in Twitter by using Twitonomy soft ware service. In conclusion, we formulated several recommendations to the public authorities on the improvement of offi cial accounts in social networks.