Election 2012: President Obama, Twitter Break Records

From the first presidential debate, when Big Bird entered the national spotlight, to the final moments before President Obama was announced as the newly re-elected President of the United States, social media played an ever-evolving role in the 2012 election.

As the election results streamed in, television analysts across the board monitored Twitter and Facebook feeds.

Seen to many as a game changer throughout the election, social media made Tuesday a historic night in more ways than one.

The presidential election became the most tweeted event ever in the history of the social media site Twitter.

More than 327,000 tweets were sent per minute at the height of the site’s traffic when it was announced that Obama had won re-election.

The Presidential election also set the record for the most tweeted about event in U.S. political history with an astonishing 31 million tweets sent.

In comparison, Election Day annihilated the previous 10 million tweets record set during the first Presidential debate just over a month ago.

The most fascinating aspect of social media and the election has been the real time engagement it offers to voters throughout the country.

"Twitter brought people closer to almost every aspect of the election this year," Twitter’s spokeswoman Rachael Horwitz told the news site Reuters.

"From breaking news, to sharing the experience of watching the debates, to interacting directly with the candidates, Twitter became a kind of nationwide caucus."

President Obama himself set a Twitter record of his own when his “4 more years tweet,” which included a picture of him hugging wife Michelle, broke the record set my Justin Bieber for the most re-tweeted tweet of all time.

Surpassing 660,000 re-tweets, Obama left Bieber’s previous record of 200,000 re-tweets in a very distance second.

Statistics on both campaigns' use of the social media site was also an eye-opener.

The Obama campaign used Twitter at an 8-1 ratio in comparison to Mitt Romney.

Immediately following the announcement that Obama would be in office for another four years, Fox News Latino took to Twitter to ask what changes Latinos hoped would be made by the Obama administration in their second term.

Aside from issues like the economy and healthcare, one of the reccurring themes was a desire for passage of the DREAM Act.

Chris Sancho Sanchez  ‏said, “@fullertonsancho: Congrats @BarackObama , now time for legislation #DREAMAct NOW!”Tweets also showed that some Latinos believe the Republican party needs to do a better job of reaching out to their demographic. -

@Eveluchi wrote, “This is a wake up call. GOP needs to work together with conservative Latinos to turn the tide.”

Fox News Latino contributing columnist Rick Sanchez added, “@RickSanchezTV: Now Republicans need to do some soul-searching. Can't be competitive nationally w/o reaching out to Hispanics.”