Obama gets Twitter account

US President Barack Obama has just launched his own Twitter feed, the White House has confirmed.

His Twitter handle is @POTUS (President Of The United States) and within few hours he had attracted over a million followers.

"Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account" is his first tweet.

The president's official feed, run by Organizing for Action staff, has 59.3m followers.

The account @BarackObama was launched in 2007, and the president initials tweets he writes himself with the letters BO.

"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," reads an entry on the White House website blog.

"President Obama is committed to making his Administration the most open and participatory in history, and @POTUS will give Americans a new venue to engage on the issues that matter most to them."

President Obama is currently following 65 people, including Bill Clinton, George Bush and @FLOTUS, the First Lady's account - but not Hillary Clinton or UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

Former Pope Benedict XVI attracted nearly 280,000 followers to his English Twitter account on its first day when he launched it in December 2012.

The account is now run by Pope Francis and has 6.1m followers. It follows eight other accounts, which all belong to the Pope and tweet in different languages.