As the United States presidential election race geared up in 2016, several candidates already stumbled out of the gate. If you are a local candidate running for office, you can learn a thing or two from these online presidential candidate gaffes.
Ted Cruz Hopes You Can Type The Right Address
In March, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced that he was running for president in 2016. Unfortunately, he missed was unable to purchase a domain that featured his own name. Someone else reserved it first.
So with the .com domain name taken, the Texas senator settled for tedcruz.org as his official campaign website.
Big mistake.
When a website address is a .org domain, how many people will often type ‘.com’ out of habit?
As of this writing, a web user going to tedcruz.com will see this:
If you don’t secure your own domain name, someone else will.
Ouch. This is probably not what the senator had in mind.
The takeaway:
A domain name is your online calling card. If you think you will be running for office, reserve your domain name as early as possible. And always get the .com version of the name. If it’s already taken, you may want to go for an entirely different domain. The last thing you want is for someone to control the .com version of your campaign website. All things considered, the person who registered tedcruz.com domain went easy on the senator.
Rand Paul Schools Us All
In April, Senator Rand Paul announced his own presidential campaign. While he has control over the .com version of his domain, the launch of his website was marred by an embarrassing gaffe.
On a video on the site, the title of the clip misspelled the word “education.” This was made even worse by the fact that the typo was on the candidate’s education platform page.
It said, “Rand Paul Opposes A One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Eductation.” Ouch.
Typos happen, but when it’s right out of the gate, it’s even more embarrassing.
The takeaway:
While you would think large campaigns would have editorial procedures in place, even silly mistakes can slip through. Remember n 2012 when former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney promised “A Better Amercia,” on his campaign’s iPhone app? Then as now, minor gaffes can become fodder for mockery.
[bctt tweet=”Small mistakes may seem careless, but can still turn off #voters. http://ow.ly/LHHa30gBj06″ username=”onlinecandidate”]
No matter the size of your campaign, watch your spelling and grammar before you launch your campaign website. A small mistake might appear careless, but poorly-written content will turn off potential voters. Have several people proof your content before it is put online or into print. Hire a good copywriter if you have to. Don’t think that smaller, local campaigns don’t fall under scrutiny.
These may have been the first online screw-ups of the 2016 presidential campaign, but they certainly were not the last.
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