Twitter’s big night: Obama’s DNC speech sets new record of 52,000 tweets per minute

Twitter has made its presence known on the political scene this election cycle, and tonight was the highlight of its journey so far. On the night that President Barack Obama formally accepted the Democratic party’s nomination for his reelection, Twitter broke a few records for political events.

During the President’s speech, the service saw about 52,000 tweets per minute, far beating Mitt Romney’s previous record of just over 14,000 tweets per minute. In fact, both former President Clinton and the First Lady beat Romney’s numbers, with Clinton seeing just over 22,000 per minute and Michelle Obama with over 28,000 per minute.

Highlights of the President’s speech from Twitter’s perspective included 43,646 tweets per minute for the quote, “I’m no longer just the candidate, I’m the President,” and between 38 and 39,000 when talking about Medicare. Overall, the Democratic National Convention saw a total of around 9.5 million tweets (compared to four million for the RNC). Following on the heels of Romney’s purchase of a sponsored topic on the night of his acceptance speech, Obama for America also purchased its own promoted hashtag, this time #Forward2012, to promote tweets to users.