Has Sarah Palin Finally Mastered The Web? Wall Street Journal Floored By Her Facebook

The former governor of Alaska has had her share of ups and downs with the internet. On one hand, she led the political field with major moves on Facebook and Twitter, only to fall out of online relevance as quickly as she appeared. The key to this internet thing is consistency, Mrs. Palin! And here’s another hint: no one actually uses LinkedIn.

Last month, our own Glynnis MacNicol wondered “Um, Who Is Running Sarah Palin’s Social Media Dept.?” noting that the feisty polician may very well deserve the “Internet crown” — “That is if her new media staff can get their act together!” But it’s clear the potential was there, and that’s why we’ve kept our eyes peeled, bracing for her triumphant return.

And it seems that the release of her memoir Going Rogue is just what she needed to catalyze her itchy blogging fingers. It’s sort of like when your boyfriend broke up with you and you realized “I should really be using my Tumblr more!” It’s purposeful and it’s therapeutic.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Palin’s publicity team has been making deliberate gains in the online arena:

Among the features of this new strategy: buying Internet advertising based on Google searches of her name, and using Facebook as a key means of communicating with voters. Her team also has considered filing libel suits against bloggers who spread rumors about her family.

Bloggers beware! But as Gawker’s Foster Kamer noted Saturday, sometimes the keyboard-reliant fight back, as with the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan, who the Journal piece singles out as a sworn enemy of Ex-Gov. “Ms. Palin considered pursuing a libel suit against at least one blogger,” the Journal states, only to have Sullivan shoot back:

Sources with access to Palin have indeed told to me that the Wasilla whack-job was an obsessive reader of this blog as it dared to ask factual questions about her past that could be easily answered.

Gawker’s take? “[H]e basically goes for the jugular while victory dancing on her face.”

Palin is, of course, also using that old hat “traditional media” to push her tome — Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Walters and all, or so we’ve heard. But when it comes to the world wide web — that’s where Palin deserves a newspaper feature aimed at old people!

A page on Facebook, the social-networking Web site, became Ms. Palin’s main sounding board. Nearly one million people have “friended” her. The page is accessible to people who aren’t Facebook members.

Wait until the Sarah Palin 2012 “iPhone” app.

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