News of US president Barack Obama's re-election had social media networks buzzing early this morning, breaking the world record for the most tweeted political event in history.
Americans went to the polls overnight to decide whether to grant Obama another four-year term in office, or to replace him with Republican challenger Mitt Romney. The elections were hotly contested and - before results started trickling in - there was no clear forerunner.
News that Obama had won his bid broke just after 7am South African time this morning, and Twitter was instantly abuzz. This is the second US election to have taken place in Twitter's six-year history.
According to Twitter Government - using the handle @gov - the US election was the most tweeted about event in US political history, as it hit 20 million tweets. Twitter Government tracks "creative and effective uses of Twitter for civic engagement".
Reuters recently noted that tweets about Hurricane Sandy, which devastated parts of the US last week, hit more than 20 million, exceeding the 13.7 million tweets sent during the Super Bowl in February, which is usually the largest media event of the year.
Twitter spike
The elections, which garnered "one hundred million votes and 31 million tweets" caused a Twitter surge as conversations hit 327 452 tweets per minute, writes @AdamS on the Twitter blog.
A US television's network call of Obama's re-election led to a spike in #Election2012-related tweets to 327 453 a minute, according to @gov. News of the re-election of the incumbent was "by far the most-tweeted moment" of the elections, the Twitter handle adds.
Although the announcement of results was the biggest moment of the election cycle, there were many other notable Twitter moments overnight, notes the blog. These included thousands of tweets per minute as individual state results were called.
"Since the campaign cycle unfolded on Twitter, it's only fitting that for candidates nationwide, the journey also culminated here," it said.
Obama became the 44th US president when he was initially elected in 2008. He was born in Hawaii, in 1961.
International leaders tweeted diplomatic messages directly to @BarackObama, including British prime minister David Cameron and Australian prime minister Julia Gillard.
Winning the race
Challenger Romney was left in the dust as, according to @foxnews, Obama out-tweeted him by eight to one during the campaign. More than 9 000 tweets were sent out by the two candidates, notes the news agency.
At around 7am this morning, local time, the newly-elected US president, using the Twitter handle @BarackObama, tweeted a picture of him hugging wife Michelle, with the comment "four more years". That tweet was re-tweeted 454 861 times within two hours and is Obama's most re-tweeted tweet "ever", according to @gov.
The photo of Barack hugging wife Michelle on Facebook had around 1.6 million "likes", more than 200 000 shares, and almost 85 000 comments at around 9am this morning.
Obama tweeted three times just minutes after winning the election, including: "We're all in this together. That's how we campaigned, and that's who we are. Thank you" and "This happened because of you. Thank you."
Almost two-and-a-half hours after news of Obama's victory broke, the topic was trending in SA, with #Election2012 top of the logs, followed by #USElections and #USPolls. Barack Obama as a topic was in seventh place, followed by Romney and then America.
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