Sarah Palin: The Most Successful Politico on Facebook?

A very interesting post on Politico.com today about Sarah Palin's emergence as a powerful force on the Internet via a deliberate embrace of social media. This from Politico journalist Andy Barr:

Relying almost exclusively on social media to get her message out, Palin has managed to carve out her own high-profile place in the national health care debate, on energy policy and on tort reform.

While Palin isn’t the only major political figure to try alternative means of communication to bypass the media, her unique ability to remain in the headlines while avoiding the spotlight suggests she may be the first to pull it off successfully.

For several days in August, the national health care debate turned to focus on so-called “death panels,” in large part because of two widely-publicized Palin Facebook posts accusing Democratic authors of the House proposal of creating bureaucratic entities to decide end of life care.

The post was immediately rebuked by Democrats, and even by some Republicans, as untrue and irresponsible. But rather than immediately firing back at her critics when reporters came calling for a response, or issuing a press release defending her claim, Palin waited five days to post her response on Facebook.

The post, simply titled “concerning the ‘death panels,’” went up shortly before midnight on a Wednesday night. By late Thursday morning, a write up of her statement was on the homepage of dozens of national and local newspapers. The post also quickly became one of the most mentioned topics within the political blogosphere.

While Palin has used her Facebook page to weigh in with lengthy posts on health care, energy policy and tort reform, it has also enabled her to highlight causes with a more personal dimension, such as a favorite charity, the celebration of Constitution Day and the commemoration of the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

“She’s trying to cut across the grain because everyone has been saying what a dope she is and she’s going into depth on these issues,” said Matalin. “This is a good strategy because it works and because it’s long form. In an ad or any visual form, you could never take the kind of deep dive on a lot of these issues.”

Her establishment of one of the most powerful social media brands in politics has coincided with her effort to all but drop off the mainstream media grid.

More on how lawyers can adopt this strategy to benefit their practices and clients tomorrow!