More and more politicians are finding themselves in hot water for things they say or do online. But it doesn’t have to be this way. With a little knowledge, foresight and attention, any political candidate can create and maintain a positive online presence.

Because there are so many potential online pitfalls, let’s focus on the most common mistakes you can make online. These errors often reveal a lack of online savvy and can end up damaging your online reputation.

Assuming you have privacy

First and foremost, anything you ever say, post or share online (or offline) should pass the ‘New York Times Test’. That means, if you wouldn’t be comfortable with what you’ve said or done online appearing on the cover of the New York Times, then don’t do it.

Pretending to be someone else

This happens more frequently then you might think: A local candidate creates several profiles on a local newspaper discussion board and uses them to promote themselves or bash their opponents. If the candidate or supporter is outed for doing this, it just looks bad … and petty.

This kind of thing also happens when the opposition engages in political domain name squatting to create fake and misleading websites. This can come back to hurt you when the truth comes out.

Small aside: While working for a local newspaper, we once ran an online poll about an issue concerning a local politician. The trend that morning was against the mayor, but within a few hours the number of votes skyrocketed and the poll suddenly swung in the mayor’s favor. Suspecting that someone was engaging in multiple votes by deleting browser cookies, we took down the poll. Less than an later, I got a call from the mayor himself asking why the poll had disappeared. I told him that we suspected there was tampering, so it was easier to take down the poll than to go through the trouble to trace and block the people who were messing with the poll. He agreed and let the matter go. Makes you wonder why he was so concerned with an online poll…

Trying to delete material after the fact

It’s not the crime, it’s the coverup that gets politicians in trouble. This occurs often with Twitter or Facebook, though it can happen anywhere, even on a campaign website. In this case, a candidate or elected official makes a crude, rude or insensitive remark. Then they later delete the post and pretend nothing happened. Unfortunately, social media posts can rarely be fully ‘deleted’ and pretending they never existed in the first place is silly.

If you must delete a post, do it, publicly acknowledge that you have done so, and move on.

Letting your accounts die slow, meaningless deaths

If you start a social media account and promote it, you owe it to the people who follow you to keep your content fresh and up to date. People will either forget about you or wonder why they decided to follow you in the first place. Either way, it doesn’t leave a positive impression.

If you have a presence on a discussion board, website or social networking site and later find that you cannot maintain your updates, be sure to let your followers know that you are stopping your updates. If you are moving on, let them know where or how you will be providing future updates.

Spam out

Bombarding supporters (or worse, voters who are not actively following you) with large numbers automated or unwanted messages will only annoy them. This can get you a reputation as a political spammer. Yuck.

The biggest offenders are the campaigns who buy unfiltered email lists and send unsolicited messages. Even though political messages do not technically fall under the CAN-SPAM act and are technically legal – sending untargeted bulk messages is a spammy practice and generally unappreciated by the recipients. Growing your own email list is a much more effective way to build an audience.

Quality over quantity should be the hallmark of your posts, Tweets or email updates. Tools like Hootsuite allow you to automate posts so that they are spread out over time. However, preplanned posts tend to be one-way broadcasts. It takes a personal touch to get voters to know, like and trust a candidate. An endless stream of canned volunteer and donation requests just won’t cut it.

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