Barack Obama Joins Twitter With New Account @POTUS, Beats Robert Downey Jr. In Guiness World Record For Twitter Followers

Barack Obama broke the world record on Monday, for the shortest time it took to reach one million followers on Twitter, with his new account @POTUS. The President's social media achievement beat the 24-hour record of "Iron Man" star Robert Downey Jr. which was achieved April last year.

After reaching one million followers in less than 5 hours, Barack Obama currently holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest million followers on Twitter.

Obama greeted Twitter a simple hello using his new account @POTUS. "Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account," he tweeted.

Obama's social media milestone beat Marvel's millionaire-playboy- philanthropist and Hollywood's King of cool Robert Downey Jr. who reached the one million mark in 23 hours and 22 minutes.

This is not the first time Obama used Twitter though. Some of his previous tweets are under the White House account @WhiteHouse and his original account @BarackObama which has an estimate of 60 million followers, but those Twitter accounts are managed by staffers. As promised, the White House provided him with a new one which tweets will come exclusively from Obama himself.

"The @POTUS Twitter account will serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him," White House Deputy Director of Online Engagement for the Office of Digital Strategy, Alex Wall said in a blog post.

Aside from the "Hello Twitter" tweet, Barack Obama has also shared photos from his New Jersey visit and his commencement speech for the Coast Guard class of 2015. He even made a lighthearted conversation with the former president Bill Clinton who welcomed him to the service.

While the tweets from the new @POTUS account will be exclusively from Obama for now, the control will be transferred eventually to the next US President following the 2016 presidential elections.