Social media will once again become part of how the nation selects its top leader. President Barack Obama has started tweeting from his official Twitter account @BarackObama. His campaign staff will author some of the tweets, while messages personally penned by the President will be signed –BO, writes Jolie O’Dell on Mashable.

As we might expect from the politician who wrote the book on integrating social network platforms into a presidential campaign, he has more on the burner than his 8.6-million-follower-strong Twitter account, reports ABC News’ Devin Dwyer. The President’s Facebook page already defaults to a donation form rather than his wall. And, as campaign buzz ramps up, more than 161,000 Facebook users have become fans of the President in the last week (he already has more than 21 million fans).

What about the Republican competition? Devin reports the contender (albeit, unofficial) with the biggest social media following is former governor Sarah Palin, with more than half a million Twitter followers and about 3 million Facebook fans.

How much impact do you think social networks and other new media sites will have in the 2012 race?