US President Barack Obama may have won office on the back of his social media prowess but is not resting on his laurels for the 2012 election.

In what is already being dubbed the ‘data election’ Obama has readied a unified computer database which can identify millions of potential voters, allowing him to directly target individuals on Facebook.

Facebook has burgeoned in popularity whilst Obama’s has sunk since the last election, putting the president’s fate increasingly in the hands of his digital analysts.

Data is being directly mined by the Obama for America re-election team who are inviting supporters to log into the campaign site via their Facebook credentials, thus allowing the campaign to access personal data such as home, interests and friends.

Dan Siroker, an Obama supporter who runs his own San Francisco-based analytics consultancy, Optimizely, said: "Facebook is now ubiquitous. Whichever candidate uses Facebook the most effectively could win the war."