Use The Web To Set The Record Straight

Being attacked during a campaign is a given for virtually all political candidates. By knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, you can prepare yourself for these attacks. This allows you to respond quickly and confidently. Done properly, you have an opportunity to build credibility and even turn the facts around on your opponent.

Here are some content ideas for your campaign website that you can use to help set the record straight.

Fill in the gaps

Politicians often make hay out of what their opponent has been quoted as saying. And while a cited quote may be true, it may also be incomplete. Take the opportunity to set the record straight online. Don’t take this to mean that you can reply to a print piece with just an online reply. You’ll need to fight fire with fire. While there may be some overlap, your print audience is not the same as your online audience.

Use your opposition’s material against them

Post your opponent’s campaign materials to your site and add commentary of where they have not been truthful, have been contradictory or just plain wrong. Use a graphics program to write over and highlight your points. Contrast and compare what they’ve said between sources from print, television or online to help prove your points.

Hang your opponent with digital rope

Sometimes you don’t have to go negative to make an opponent look bad. All you have to do it let your opponent to it for themselves. Pull some of the more damaging things your opponent has said or done and post them on your website. As Mitt Romney found out in 2012, it’s the unguarded discussions that can be the most damaging. If your opponent is an incumbent, put an unedited video of them publicly speaking about issue or topic. What they say on the campaign trail may be different than what they advocate while doing their jobs.

If you use video, be sure to include a transcription of the audio.

Use infographics

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an infographic is worth ten times that amount. What is an infographic? It’s basically a a visual way to represent data. If you can use information and present it in an informative and entertaining graphic, it will go a long way to making your point. How many times has your opponent misrepresented you? How many times have they misrepresented themselves? What can you compare those numbers to? (“If I had a dollar for every time an opponent did … I could buy… )

If you can get your own information and point of view across in a simple (and possibly humorous) way, it will have more of an impact and perhaps provide something that your site visitors can share with others.