Presidential Election 2012 and Social Media: Barack Obama Re-elected President, Breaks Justin Bieber's Social Media Reaction Record

President Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney to hold the office of the presidency until 2016 and while many were happy and sad, a different race was going on social media.

According to Guinness World Records, Obama broke three social media records, for Most widespread social network message in 24 hours, Most likes on a Facebook item in 24 hours and Most likes on a Facebook item ever.

Guinness World Records Editor-in-Chief Craig Glenday said the stats are a testament to the President's global popularity and a demonstration of the importance and power of social media in modern politics.

"Obama did more than just beat Romney; he also ousted Justin Bieber from the Twitter top spot and broke the most significant social media records to date." Glenday said in a statement. "Browsing through the comments on Twitter and Facebook, it's clear that it's not just Americans who are overjoyed at Obama's victory last night - the world has tweeted and posted its support for the President's second term."

According to Twitter, Election Day became the most tweeted about event in U.S. political history with users sending 31 million tweets.

The first polls closed at 7 p.m. and Twitter said seven million #Election2012-related Tweets were sent since the first polls opened, coming in at more than 11k per minute right now.

At 10 p.m., the president's campaign tweeted "RT if you're on #TeamObama tonight" - a tweet that got 242,518 retweets and 20,233 favorites.

Twitter traffic grew as the networks called the reelection of Obama. #Election2012-related tweets spiked to 327,453 per minute at 11:19 p.m., according to Twitter.

The president's re-election "was by far the most-tweeted moment of #Election2012."

Minutes after learning the news, Obama took to Twitter to confirm the news. He shared a picture to his 22.7 million followers of him and First Lady Michelle Obama hugging with the caption "Four more years."

The president's post became his most retweeted tweet ever.

As of this writing, 638,942 people have retweeted the picture and 216,388 people have favorited the picture.

According to Guinness, "'Four more years'" is still being retweeted with more than 16 hours to go to complete the 24 hours required to satisfy the world record, but the figure has already surpassed the posts of the previous record holder, Justin Bieber."

Bieber's 18th birthday message was re-posted 251,878 times on Twitter and Facebook by different individuals within 24 hours of its first appearance on March 1.

Guinness said a post made just after midnight on Obama's official Facebook page received the Most likes on a Facebook item ever, doubling in less than 24 hours the previous records of 1,662,336 and surpassing by four times the record for Most likes on a Facebook item in 24 hours, which stood at 588,243.

The final figures that will enter the record books will be confirmed by Guinness World Records after the 24-hour period is finalized.