On November 6, 2012 at precisely 11:15pm ET on Facebook and 11:16pm ET on Twitter, Barack Obama, the President of the United States of America, posted the photo above with the caption, “Four more years.”

As of November 10, 2012 @ 1:30pm ET, the Facebook photo has 4,306,739 ‘Likes’, 577,941 shares and 207,747 comments; making it the most ‘Liked’ photo ever on Facebook [Source]. The Facebook page for Barack Obama has over 33.1 million ‘Likes’.

In comparison, the tweet on Twitter has 809,193 retweets and 292,755 ‘favorites’, making it the most retweeted photo/message in Twitter history [Source]. @BarackOBama has over 23 million followers.

 

 

The social media statistics for the entire election day/night are equally staggering. According to Facebook + Journalists, there were 71.7 million election-related posts and comments in the United States alone on election day (Nov. 6, 2012). The top 20 terms by overall mention count for election day were:

1. Obama
2. Vote / Voted
3. Romney
4. Election
5. President
6. Country
7. Win / Wins
8. Line
9. Four More Years / 4 More Years
10. Ohio
11. Election Day
12. Results
13. Polls
14. Ballots
15. Proud
16. Close
17. Florida
18. Electoral
19. Lost
20. Colorado

[Source]

 

 

Four more years. twitter.com/BarackObama/st…

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 7, 2012

 

On Twitter, there were an estimated 31 million election-related tweets, hitting a peak of 327,452 tweets per minute (TPM). Other notable TPM moments included:

– 327,452 TPM – 11:19pm ET – Networks call Obama’s reelection
– 85,273 TPM – 11:12pm ET – IA presidential race called
– 69,031 TPM – 9:33pm ET – PA and WI presidential races called
– 65,106 TPM – 8:03pm ET – Polls close in various states; AP calls races for IL, CT, ME, DC, DE, RI, MD, MA

[Source]

 

It’s nice that the record-breaking photo was a celebratory moment and not a tragic or disaster-related image. However, records were meant to be broken, and as both networks continue to grow, it’s inevitable that another photo will replace this one as the most ‘Liked’ and/or ‘Retweeted’ photo of all time. Any thoughts what it will be?