Tuning In: Top Social Media Sites Team With Traditional Media Outlets For Election Day

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) announced on Monday that it would team up with 50 different media outlets including print, online publications and broadcast stations for Election Day.

The idea is to promote the company’s Facebook Live video streaming service, which competes almost head-to-head with Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR)’s Periscope. Consequently, the company is not especially focused on selling ads (in fact, it won’t put up any for sale), but rather it is seeking traffic.

Each one of the aforementioned media outlets will focus on one of the 50 states, producing a 15-minute long live video on the election, which will be streamed through Facebook’s platform, under the “Election 2016” page. Use the #50states hashtag to access the related content.

A Lot Like Live Tweeting

When asked if Facebook Live (and the #50states project in particular) arose as a response to the popularity of “live tweeting,” or the practice of posting live updates of a determined event on Twitter, Jason White, manager of U.S. news media partnerships at Facebook responded, “[W]e really wanted to give the news media and especially local (outlets) something to raly [sic] around on Election day.”

Ad breaks could be included in Facebook Live in the future, but the platform will remain ad-free for now, White added.

For its part, Twitter will be sharing live updates on the election via its Twitter Government (@gov) account, and using the hashtags #ElectionDay and #Election2016.