Social media is a field of growing importance in our understanding of society, business and education. Emerging from the rapid adoption of internet technologies, social media is liable to grow even more ubiquitous, as the smart phone, tablet and other mobile platforms proliferate. Social media is of intense interest to business, the public sector, educators and analysts both as an exciting way of harnessing technology and widening participation, but also as the generator of big data - which offers a wealth of content for analysis. Leading Issues in Social Media seeks to further our appreciation of the impact of social media by gathering papers presented by a range of academic voices. The volume came about as a result of the editors, Sue Greener and asher Rospigliosi, hosting the first European Conference on Social Media at the University of Brighton in 2014. From those three days in which academics and practitioners gath-ered, debated, discussed and learned and the ensuing conversations there emerged these exciting papers that further our thinking about the leading issues in social media.