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"President Barack Obama's Facebook and Twitter following leaves Republican presidential candidates in the dust.\nThe president has more than 25 million Facebook Likes and more than 12.5 million Twitter followers. \nSince his 2008 campaign for president, Obama has changed the way the public engages with political candidates running for office.  He was and still is the social-media-savvy candidate who reaches out to voters on the online platforms where they communicate. President  Obama's social media accounts are primarily run by his campaign staff, but Obama signs the tweets he writes with -BO.\nIn October 2011, Obama found one more way he could connect with young voters: by joining Tumblr, a blogging site used by tons of young people.\nOther candidates have followed Obama's tech-savvy lead. They have signed up for social media platforms and their staffs post regularly. On average, the 2012 presidential candidates post to their accounts two to five times per day, according to PRMarketing.com, who created the infographic below. \nWhen it comes to followers and Likes, Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich split second place. Romney comes in second with 1.4 million Facebook Likes, while Newt Gingrich has 1.4 million Twitter followers, ranking him the second most followed 2012 election candidate, although many of his followers' accounts are inactive. A former Gingrich staffer told Gawker that Gingrich purchased Twitter followers on eBay. \nRon Paul is the third most followed candidate with more than 862,000 Facebook Likes and more than 130,000 Twitter followers. Rick Santorum is next to last with nearly 130,000 Twitter followers and more than 138,000 Facebook Likes. Gary Johnson, the libertarian who has been in and out of the race, has the least amount of Facebook Likes and Twitter followers, but he is building his following. He has more than 23,000 Twitter followers and 149,000 Facebook Likes.\nCheck out the infographic below. Twitter and Facebook numbers have increased for all candidates since the infographic was made. \nFollowers and likes don't always translate to endorsements, but do you think a candidate's following could turn into votes?\nThumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, manley099\n\n\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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