Twitter has claimed its latest high-profile user in the form of First Lady Michelle Obama.

Michelle officially became a member of the Twitterati earlier today (12 January) under the hashtag @michelleobama and amassed over 60,000 followers within hours.

Her first tweet read, "We're excited today to launch @michelleobama as a new way for you to connect with First Lady Michelle Obama and the President's campaign."

White House administrators noted that the account would be managed by campaign staff with any tweets from the First Lady herself signed as "-mo."

Michelle then came on to tweet, "Hi, everyone, and thanks for the warm welcome. Look forward to staying in touch with you here. -mo."

Her husband Barack Obama was hot on her heels, doing a shout-out to Twitter's newest recruit.

"It’s not every day we get to welcome the First Lady of the United States to Twitter - happy to have you, @MichelleObama!" a tweet from his account read.

Michelle is some way off her spouse's 11,863,993 Twitter followers at the moment: but at this rate, she won't take long to catch up.

The Twittersphere reacted eagerly to the news, with people rushing to re-tweet news of Michelle's arrival on the social media forum.

The move to join Twitter is seen to demonstate a major commitment by the First Lady to playing a pivotal role in the forthcoming 2012 presidential race.

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Michelle Obama joins Twitter