Last night’s reelection message from President Barack Obama was highlighted by the sheer number of re-tweets from his Twitter followers. Within twenty minutes of the first post, Obama’s victory message surpassed the existing record held by Canadian teen star, Justin Bieber.
The tweet from Obama’s official Twitter page stated, “Four more years” and showed a photo of Barack and Michelle embracing in celebration.
The tweet garnered 226,249 retweets by midnight eastern standard time, and quickly garnered 510,000 re-tweets- a number that will continue to grow.
Shortly afterward, President Obama thanked his supporters in another tweet, which stated, “We’re all in this together. That’s how we campaigned, and that’s who we are. Thank you. -bo”
Twitter isn’t the only social media website that’s shown the President some love. Earlier this morning, the aforementioned photograph of Barack and Michelle hugging each other became the most-liked Facebook photo of all time. According to The Atlantic, that picture earned over 2.1 million likes.
These numbers are really no surprise, as social media has played a big part throughout the entire campaign. Twitter users recorded the highs and lows of all four presidential debates. Many social media users on Facebook and Twitter (roughly 22 percent) shared their thoughts on who should win, as well as ballot measures. Some people even used Instagram, and dared to record and share their actual ballots.
As CNET reports, Obama’s tweet “quickly logged more than 350,000 retweets and 100,000 votes as favorite tweets, easily surpassing a Justin Bieber tweet grieving the passing of Avalanna Routh, a young fan who died of brain cancer in September, which held the title with a little more than 223,000 retweets. Bieber captured the title two days after Green Bay Packers lineman T.J. Lang tweeted his frustration with replacement referees during an NFL game. “
There is little doubt that social media played a big part in this year’s election but how much involvement is still yet to be discovered.
