To see how much Twitter has grown in the past four years, just look at the 2013 Inauguration Day numbers below compared to 2009. In a little over one hour, there were 1.1 million tweets about this year’s Inauguration Ceremony. This is compared to just 82,392 tweets about Obama’s first Inaugural in 2009.
Inaugural Twitter activity hit its apex – driving an incredible 27,795 tweets per minute – when Obama said:
For now decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate. We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years, and forty years, and four hundred years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.
The difference between this Inauguration and last is not only in the numbers, but also in how news networks have integrated social into their broadcasts. Fox News actually reported on the below chart provided by Twitter’s @gov team, and said that it will continue to integrate viewer questions into their broadcasts moving forward.