Mr. Twitter Goes to Washington

11/07/2012 3 min read Written by Lynton

twitter voteAs with anything else in the world right now, social media played a huge role in not only the campaigns of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, but in Americans watching the results on television.

Last night, Twitter reported that they saw a surge of 327,452 tweets per minute when networks called the election for President Obama. Twitter even set up a special #election2012 page to track tweets relating to the election. The hashtag saw well over 11 million tweets.

When President Obama posted his "victory tweet" it was retweeted by over 400,000 people in under two hours (it has since risen to over 600,000). My FOX Boston is saying that it is the most popular tweet in the history of Twitter.

The campaigns and debates played out in memes on the Internet. Sites popped up for Mr. Romney's binders full of women and President Obama's horses and bayonets comment, but also serious issues like Mitt Romney's now infamous 47% video which was uploaded to YouTube and was a huge hit to Mr. Romney's campaign.

We all know that social media is a powerful tool, and that if your business isn't on Twitter and Facebook you're missing out on so much.

Social media continues to change the way we consume politics, entertainment, media, sports and beyond. Last night many Americans watched the results roll in with a laptop, tablet or smartphone in their hand, posting reactions to the news as it came pouring in.

This happens everywhere, not just with politics.

In 2009 when Flight 1549 went down into the Hudson River, the story broke on Twitter. Just this past week in New Jersey and New York thousands of photos documenting the damage from Hurricane Sandy hit Twitter and Instagram giving the world a first hand look at the damage.

When blogs became popular, everyone could become a writer and publisher. With social media, we can all become reporters.

With all the daily nonsense that gets posted to social media it can be difficult to remember that it is an important tool, not only for business and marketing, but the way report on the world around us.

By: Lynton

Lynton is a HubSpot Elite Partner that provides certified knowledge and tools to grow your business through integrated inbound marketing, including lead generation strategies, website designs and development, and CRM integrations.

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