Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

This is the Jim Gilmore installment of a series of 11 posts I am presenting today here at ElephantBiz.com surveying the social-media aspects of the websites of the 11 Republicans currently running for President. (See: "Grading the Candidates' Blogs.")

Jim Gilmore's campaign website, gilmoreforpresident.com, starts off with a bang, featuring a video that begins running as soon as you load the page. It's of Gilmore introducing himself and talking about why he's running for president.

The home page also features "Blog Buzz," a collection of recent posts about Gilmore culled from the blogosphere. There's also an official unnamed campaign blog, which features news from the campaign as well as transcripts of Gilmore's remarks at recent debates, video clips of his television appearances, and even a transcript of a live online "chat" he participated in for Denver's Rocky Mountain News. The blog does accept reader comments. Gilmore's website also has links to official campaign MySpace, FaceBook and YouTube pages, and a Flickr photostream. The site also has something called "MyGilmore," which allows Gilmore girls and guys to post a Gilmore donations box on their own website, with the blogger generating the most bucks for Gilmore's campaign winning a Nintendo Wii.

What's missing? A "Bloggers for Gilmore" blogroll would be nice - surely there are some, after all, he scored points in the blogosphere last February by announcing he'd be a blogging President.

In terms of effective and broad use of social media, I'd give the overall effort a grade of C-.

In terms of effective and broad use of social media, I'd give the overall effort a grade of B.

Update: For reviews of social media efforts of the other 10 Republican presidential candidates, see the list below: