Though it was Mitt Romney's night at the Republican National Convention last night, Romney's "No. 2" saw better sustained buzz on social media. But the ultimate social star was an unlikely parody Twitter account.

Rep. Paul Ryan picked up more new Facebook Fans than Romney over the period from Thursday morning thru Friday morning --- and nearly as many Twitter followers --- as the GOP ticket topper, capping a big week that introduced the Republican VP nominee to the nation.

Ryan added an impressive 87,000 fans on Facebook in the past 24 hours, nearly doubling the 48,500 new fans who signed up for Romney.  To that Ryan also added 18,000 new Twitter followers.

The Wisconsin congressman now has 2.6 million total Facebook fans and some 432,000 Twitter followers across his several accounts, which include new Facebook and Twitter pages rolled out specifically for his VP run. 

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who had a primetime speaking slot last night, also saw big gains. Rubio's fiery and heartwarming speech introducing Romney drew a flurry of Twitter activity --- nearly 9,000 tweets per minute and 6,500 confirmed mentions by name (we're still analyzing complete numbers) --- and helped him attract more than 6,000 new Facebook fans and 5,000 Twitter followers. The Republicans will need to capitalize on Rubio's expanding base for Romney to win Florida, an absolutely critical swing state in 2012.

But, as we were reminded last night, Americans' attention for politics wouldn't be anything without comedy. The surreal ad-libbed speech by actor Clint Eastwood generated a huge amount of buzz (7,000 tweets per minute) and upended the GOP's tightly scripted convention themes. Eastwood's speech spawned a spoof Twitter account, @InvisibleObama, that gained more than 42,000 followers since yesterday, more than Romney + Ryan combined.  Did the GOP just inadvertently launch a distracting meme that will cloud the Romney/Ryan message between now and the start of the Democrats' confab in Charlotte?    

Snapshots of social media activity for the final day of the 2012 RNC

from OhMyGov Media Monitoring

Twitter Mentions, last 24 hours

Twitter Followers, last 24 hours

Facebook Fans, last 24 hours

Note: In many cases, Politicians have more than one Twitter account or Facebook page. OhMyGov's numbers reflect the total number of followers and fans across politicians' social accounts, resulting in numbers that are more comprehensive and more accurate than what you will see reported elsewhere. 

Follow us on Twitter at @ohmygov