A few weeks ago a group of elected officials asked me the following question: What do we do when we are attacked online? My answer to them: Have the largest online footprint possible.

What do I mean by an "online footprint"?  In a broad sense, an online footprint is the extent to which you are connected with your supporters in the online space. Sayfie Review founder Justin Sayfie defined the term more specifically in a recent speech to the Tallahassee Tiger Bay Club when he said, "Develop a massive email distribution list, a massive number of Facebook friends, and a massive following on Twitter."

However your campaign decides to define it, having the largest online footprint possible is no longer an option for candidates - it is absolutely critical to political survival.

In the same conversation mentioned above, I cited Sarah Palin as someone whose online footprint both Republicans and Democrats should take note of. Love her or hate her, Sarah Palin currently boasts twice the amount of Facebook fans as Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty, Haley Barbour, Charlie Crist and Jeb Bush combined. More importantly than posting incredible numbers in the online space (she also boasts 142,000+ Twitter followers) Palin is actually leveraging her massive online footprint to communicate exactly the message she wants her supporters to hear - with no media filter.

Immediately following the announcement of her resignation, mainstream news organizations scrambled to find the first hints of reason behind Palin's decision. Before they could get to the source or anyone close to the Governor, Palin communicated directly to her most loyal supporters - via Facebook. Not an interview on the network nightly news, not a radio segment with Rush Limbaugh, but a Facebook note.

If you feel that a member of the press or some anonymous blogger has done you wrong online, the best way to fight back is by having a giant online footprint that you can leverage to communicate your side of the story. And if you don’t think the day will come when you will need to communicate your side of a story in response to bad press, then I would point you to former Virginia Senator George Allen.

In 2006, George Allen was the assumed front runner in the race for the Republican nomination for President. It only took a one minute YouTube video of Allen slipping a racial slur to not only end his presidential aspirations but also bring him to defeat in his re-election bid for the U.S. Senate. Unlucky for Allen, the now famous “macaca” video was the first of its kind - a video recorded on someone’s personal video camera, uploaded to YouTube and then spread virally through the internet.

The devastating element of the “macaca” video was not the racial slur itself, but rather the Allen campaign’s inability to defend themselves on the field they were being attacked on. George Allen was being attacked on an unknown medium. Before Allen, no one knew what YouTube was and because of that, the campaign responded via channels that weren’t relevant to the source of the attack. The campaign fought back with press releases, statements from press secretaries and TV interviews with the candidate instead of fighting back in the online space - on YouTube - the only place the hemorrhaging could have been stopped.

When candidates are attacked on television, they defend themselves on television.  When candidates are attacked through direct mail, they defend themselves through direct mail.  When candidates are attacked online --- few defend themselves online because they have not made the long term investment of building their online footprint, leaving them with no weapons to fight back.

Lucky for you, Sarah Palin, George Allen and others have provided best and worst case studies on how to handle political communications in the online space. It no longer matters if a candidate “is comfortable” or not with the internet and growing his or her online footprint. A massive online footprint is essential to promoting your message and defending yourself against inevitable attacks.

With that, I will leave you with some numbers I have pulled together in an attempt to size up the online footprints of the major candidates for each state-wide office in Florida for 2010. These numbers are not to be taken alone as a perception of overall strength or weakness of any one candidate. Having thousands of Facebook friends and Twitter supporters doesn’t make up for a bad candidate or, in some cases, a significant financial disadvantage; but for the reasons I have laid out above, the size of a candidate’s online footprint is significant and should not go unlooked by either the Davids or Goliaths of politics.

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