Facebook Venturing into Politics Coverage

FREE IFN Newsletter

Facebook Venturing Into Politics Coverage

By: Jordan McCollum
2007-11-27

There has been some backlash against Facebooks recently unveiled Social Ads during the first three weeks of its run, but Facebook is pushing...

...ahead with its own agenda. Today, they announced a partnership with ABC News to bring political coverage to Facebook. As Facebooks first partnership with a news organization, the deal could change the way that Facebook users think about politics.

Now, just providing political news wouldnt be enough to make an impact, so Facebook and ABC News will be jointly sponsoring Democratic and Republican debates in New Hampshire. The debates are scheduled for January 5, three days before the states primary.

The New York Times covers the deal, noting that ABC News reporters have already been using Facebook as a way to communicate with their readers:

"The collaboration between ABC News and Facebook started quietly several weeks ago, with personal pages of network reporters like Rick Klein, the author of ABCs widely read political newsletter The Note, and Sunlen Miller, who has been covering Barack Obama."

"Encouraging users to interact with reporters is a significant step for a news organization like ABC News. Until recently, a viewer wanting to respond to Mr. Kleins daily essay could only write a comment or send an e-mail message to a generic address. Now, they can send private messages directly to reporters or can post them on the reporters public Facebook pages. For now, while the number of comments remains relatively small, reporters engage in dialogues with viewers. "

So, how much did this sweet deal bring in, and for what party? The answer may surprise you:

"[President of ABC News Dan] Westin and [Facebooks Vice President for Business Development Dan] Rose said that no money changed hands in the deal. For ABC News, the collaboration puts political content on a site with 56 million active users. For Facebook, it adds an authoritative source and fresh content for the sites political section."

What do you think: is this deal the future of politics"or just online content partnerships?

Comments

Tag: Facebook

Add to

Del.icio.us |

Digg |

Reddit |

Furl

About the Author:
Jordan McCollum is a staff writer for the popular marketing blog Marketing Pilgrim. She has worked in search engine optimization with clients including 3M, Little Giant Ladders and ADP. After graduating from Brigham Young University, Jordan joined the SEO copywriting team at the Internet marketing firm 10x Marketing. After 10x closed its doors in December 2006, Jordan became a freelance writer and Internet marketing consultant specializing in SEO. She also has extensive experience with web analytics, conversion rate enhancement and e-mail marketing.


Titan Quest Forum	Nintendo Wii	Graphics Forum
Halo 3 Forum	Mac Software