The Washington Post sponsored the Twitter hashtag #election as part of its coverage of the US midterm elections this week.
The Post’s sponsorship of the term #Election means that it will appear at the top of the list of Trending Topics on Tuesday. When users click on that topic, one of the Post’s tweets will appear above other tweets with the #Election hashtag – giving the Post prime real estate to promote its coverage and updates.
There were rumours flying around as to how much the Post had spent on the ‘promoted tweet’ service from Twitter, but a spokeswoman for the title said it would not comment on the cost.
Chloe Sladden, Twitter’s director of media partnerships, told Poynter that this was the first time a news organisation had used Twitter in this way.
Using new Twitter, the Post also hosted a live video stream, which it called an Election Day Twittercast, on the @washingtonpost handle.
“The Post will solicit questions from Twitter users as it simultaneously airs on the platform. The Post is among the first news organisations to be able to embed live and taped video on the new Twitter platform,” a release from the Post says.
