In the US presidential election, how do social media platforms show their power?

In the end, Trump won the US presidential election.

In addition to busy voters and spectators, elections also rely on the participation of social media. Compared with previous years, this year the three major mainstream social apps abroad (Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat) are working harder to promote their own platforms as the main base for news generation, sharing and dissemination.

During the long election season, more and more social media has ultimately evolved into a gossip generator, with the purpose of sharing, discussing and complaining about recent headlines.

Just as the US presidential election took place on the 8th local time, people are more willing to get the election results on their smartphones, and social media led by Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter will also play a more important role.

According to a July study by the Pew Research Center, nearly 25% of American adults said they tend to get news and information about the election by reading articles about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on social media. In contrast, only 15% obtained this information from the candidate's website or email. Moreover, in the past four months, the number of people choosing social media as a way to obtain information has continued to grow.

Katie Harbath, Facebook's global director of politics and outreach, said: "Discussions about the election continue to ferment on Facebook, making Facebook the new town hall." She also said that "during this campaign, Facebook has seen many successful examples of making full use of social media to unite and energize teams and actively interact with voters."

Facebook revealed that many political ads have been reduced from the highly competitive television broadcasts and turned to Facebook. The reason is that the former is limited by the capacity of existing television programs, while the latter has the ability to precisely target ads. The special thing about the election is that the 11th hour of the presidential campaign is the most intense and stalemate, and political fundraising ads will not stop playing until the last second.

Facebook also cited the example of New Hampshire to demonstrate the advantages of social platforms compared to traditional political TV ads. The region has increased its campaign spending and has become a battleground in presidential and Senate races. Much of the state is dominated by the Boston television market, but buying those TV spots is nearly ineffective because campaigns that target New Hampshire viewers have to compete for advertising time with political contests in Massachusetts.

In addition to targeting political ads, Facebook also provides a range of tools to help users navigate to election pages. The login page also provides an entrance to the user's voting station, and can also suggest users to invite friends to vote together, as well as voting requirements and ballot previews.

Snapchat also actively participated in the election. It not only released a new emoji "Go Vote", but also added a new filter (geofilter) to remind users to vote when they appear in a specific location. Snapchat pays particular attention to the integration of election news, continuously pushing dynamic campaign results provided by partner media, and simultaneously updating the corresponding filters that can be used during primaries and caucuses, covering a user group of more than 100 million. In Snapchat's video aggregation column "Live Stories", the election results, voter acceptance, withdrawal statements, etc. will be emphasized, and of course related filters for users to use and share will also be launched.

Snapchat has released a series of political ads on a rolling basis, including its first sponsored video for a US political event - on Monday, November 7, Priorities USA Action, a super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton, filmed a nationwide video, which the Clinton campaign added an "I'm with her" filter to. According to Snapchat, this or sponsored filter normally covers 40% to 60% of its users. Of course, Trump's campaign team was not willing to lag behind and released a similar nationwide filter on election day.

Various other types of candidates are also looking to Snapchat to reach its typically young user base. Interestingly, even the two oldest serving senators, Grassley and McCain, are advertising on Snapchat. Republican Senator Peter Kinder's launch of the filter in his state of Missouri comes shortly after Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio launched a statewide filter campaign.

Twitter, meanwhile, is highlighting an election voting reminder tool that will direct message users to check for Senate, federal and local races.

Twitter reported a sharp increase in spending by U.S. political action committees on its platform over the past week, with spending focused on ads aimed at getting out the vote and persuading voters to hold on until the last minute during uncertain times. Perhaps as an outsider, we can expect to see whether this large amount of money can drive Twitter's profitability, or whether this frequent publicity can attract more users to Twitter during the current valuable political season and the company's critical fourth quarter.