Let's start by Googling her. I used a Chrome incognito window so Googs didn't take into account my browsing history when doing the ranking (your Nevada-based IP address results may vary.)
The first thing that struck me was the ads: only one in favor of Ms. Angle. The top ad is especially funny, luring you in with what seems like a positive endorsement. If Angle is spending money on her name as a keyword, she's getting outbid badly.The CellPhoneCycle site does not look legitimate. Sharron, where are you??
Next I took a look at the organic results. OK, it's not hard to be the first link for your own, oddly-spelled name (doesn't there almost have to be a similarly-named porn star, Sharon Angles?)
Note: If using the traditional spelling of the name and Google "Sharon Angle" as any regular, more illiterate person might, Google automatically shows results for the correct spelling anyway (this will be important later).
Since the text in the result for sharronangle.com seems random, we can guess they don't have proper meta tags or a site map to provide in-line links to the various pages (confirmed by source code.)
The rest of the links are rather unflattering news stories about Sharron's controversial comments on abortion. But hey, Google is only 90% of the search market; let's check out the competition.
When I Binged (that doesn't work well written as a verb; makes me want to "purge") Sharron Angle, I got fairly similar results, except Bing brought her MySpace page up near the top. The advertising was still one-sided -- no pro-Sharron stuff here. This is when I had the idea to try the "Sharon Angle" misspelling in Bing and see what happened:
The Angle website suffers from the same bland, static, need-to-scroll, failures we're accustomed to seeing on campaign websites; I'll move on to the social networks, if I can find them.
Angle's Facebook page starts out decently -- a custom landing page with one solitary call to action: Like the page. I wonder if this isn't a missed opportunity to get people's email addresses too.. not by saying "sign up for action alerts!!" but asking for feedback with a nice big comment box above the sign-up.
The majority of posts on the page are bragging about how many fans they have (barf) or no-context syndication of press releases. The auto-RSS function for the Notes app is the worst, laziest feature used by page admins. People don't read that stuff because it feels unnaturally thrust into their feed.
It also becomes clear that the web designers for her main site aren't incorporating the Facebook tags for images, titles and descriptions to display correctly in the publisher. This stuff is important guys. Sharring is caring, right? (phrase copyrighted)
On to Twitter. @SharronAngle's Bio reads: "Nevada's battle-tested conservative who won't back down. Join the fight and help me defeat Harry Reid!" Yes, battle-tested is necessary because of all the pie fights that break out on the Senate floor.
She doesn't engage much, mostly @ mentioning her opponent @HarryReid. It doesn't make any sense to give credence to your opponent's account.
Here's a funny update, retweeted forty times by her loyal followers:
Very easy where Sharron -- WHERE??Oh right, now I remember there are several bright orange donate buttons on every page of your site. Whose idea was it to go with the color of fall out? If there were a like button on that, I would click it.
A better indicator of her influence might be a Twitter search:
"sharron angle" OR "sharon angle" OR @sharronangle OR @sharonangle include:retweets
Things aren't looking real good there, either.
Sharron does have a list on her twitter page though, called "the Angle Brigade". I like this concept and can't recall another politician using it. +1 for building community!
