ABSTRACT
A well-executed digital campaign provides an unprecedented tool for campaign communication, much of it affordably priced. And candidate and issue-based campaigns are eager to leverage digital and social media as effectively as possible. This chapter provides a crash course to help you understand the basics of digital campaigning. Some things are mandatory: Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and a website. These represent the bare minimum in digital campaigning and can be found under the "Minor League" section. Understanding demographics will inform a campaign about how best to communicate with a target audience. The website, once the center of the candidate's online presence, plays a different function since the proliferation of social media. Standard campaign software now has some basic microtargeting features—information that was once prohibitively expensive to local elections. The candidate's online reputation is the impression one gets when looking at his or her cumulative digital footprint.
