How Facebook Helped NBC News Go Social For New Hampshire Debate

Special guest post by Esteban L. Hernandez



With the Republican candidate field now cut to six GOP hopefuls, ABC News and NBC gathered the candidates in New Hampshire on Saturday night and Sunday morning in Concord, NH.

Saturday’s debate which appeared on ABC News was a traditional one, airing on primetime and generating some buzz on Twitter. The official hashtag for the debate was #NHDebate.

But on Sunday morning, NBC News partnered with Facebook for a less traditional but equally important GOP debate held at the Capital Center for the Arts in Concord, NH.

The program, which was officially a special edition of NBC’s “Meet the Press” was hosted and moderated David Gregory.

The partnership with Facebook meant linking the debate through the “Meet the Press” Facebook page, which has close to 80,000 likes. The page generated 4,620 comments, while the 60-minute debate was streamed live on the page and allowed Facebook users to submit questions.

In addition to the Facebook page, NBC also polled viewers, asking them if the NBC-Facebook debate changed their picks for president. Also available on the NBC News, MSNBC website were the results of a Facebook survey asking viewers what five issues facing the country were the most important. With an overwhelming majority, the economy was the most popular choice among all viewers.

Overall, NBC News did a solid job of keeping folks in Facebook connected while allowing them to interact with other users who feel passionate about discussing politics . Even after the end of the debate, people continued adding comments to the NBC News-Facebook debate website.