In regards, to the post below - my thoughts are this. Talk about John McCain on MySpace tonight, please....

Here's a poll with cool music to convince you.

Hugh Hewitt has a contest running over at Townhall, and the prize is $500 for the winner. Hugh wants to see some amateur campaign ads made on the best Christmas theme.

And what sort of ads should the candidates be running in the week before Christmas? That's my new contest: Submit your amateur ad (for any candidate, D or R) that employs the Christmas theme best. First Prize: $500. Send me the link for your work along with your contact info. Negative ads accepted, though of course only the 527s will run ads showing Hillary in a sleigh loaded with a huge pile of coal etc.

It doesn't matter which candidate or which party, but of course I'd like to see some great conservative commercials. So if you have Final Cut, or iMovie, get to work. If you don't have those softwares, you can use the Flektor software for free to make your ad.

My advice? Pick some Christmas music and be optimistic. The goal is to create an ad a candidate would actually run. Here is an example of what you can do with Flektor. Now get to work and win that cash money!

MySpace and MTV just announced that John McCain is going to be the next contender in Presidential Dialogues in New Hampshire on December 3rd, 7 p.m.EST. If you're in New Hampshire, there is still room in the audience - check in to the myspace.com/election2008 website to get selected.

So why is this important to the TechRepublican audience? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it's because this event is the largest online audience of the youth vote, and the two previous speakers, Obama and Edwards, drew large numbers and had overwhelmingly positive response on the Flektor polling widget, which took real time voting results and broadcast them as the event went on.

Much of that was due to their online organization. If you can drive 10,000 people online at a specific moment, you can affect the polls. We've seen this online many, many times. My concern, is what happens when those same people go online to vote negatively.

I don't want to see either of these story lines on December 4. McCain fails to draw youth reponse to MTV appearance, and Youth Vote mainly negative for Republicans.

Check out the statistics: Since their debut, the video highlights from the two previous dialogues have been streamed approximately 700,000 times, and nearly 3.3 million people viewed the event on television

So if you're near a computer on Dec 3rd in the evening, make sure to sign on and watch the event. And if you're a McCain staffer - make sure you're organizing your e-mail list to drive supporters online.

Full Disclosure: Flektor is a client of Durbin Media Group, but this post is solely a personal message, and not authorized by Flektor or Fox Interactive Media, or indicative of their opinions.

The next presidential dialogue for the MySpace/MTV crowd is set. It's October 29th in Cedar Rapids. Information here at the Flektor-Blog. Why is this important?

The inaugural MySpace / MTV Presidential Dialogue, with former Senator John Edwards, reached a wide audience on-air, online and on mobile phones. Held September 27 at the University of New Hampshire, the event was broadcast live on MySpace and www.ChooseorLose.com, and since its online premiere, has been streamed approximately 350,000 times. The on-air broadcast (7-8 pm ET) was the #1 program for viewers aged 18-24 across all of cable for the time period, and was seen by a total of nearly two million viewers overall (all ages). Nearly 2,300 questions were submitted for Senator Edwards by online viewers during the course of the one hour Dialogue. Adding to its historical significance, the Dialogue with John Edwards was the first-ever Presidential forum to be broadcast live on mobile phones, via MTV Mobile.

That's a lot of young voters, and Edwards and Obama are getting first crack at them. There are Republicans that will be a part of the process, but it's clearly not as big of a deal. Republican candidates should be clamoring to get in front of this audience, and they're not.

Some of us may think it's because MTV is so liberal. Well, the liberals think MySpace is dominated by Murdoch rightwingers, and it's not stopping them. It's a space we need to be more active in, and if you any influence on a candidate, now is the time to be speaking up.

Flektor's polling tool has been a good story, and there's more to come after the event. Full disclosure: Flektor is a client of mine, but in this case, I'm posting not to push Flektor, but to let conservatives know there are tools and events out there we should be taking advantage of.

An excellent example is Doug Ross's Journal, and his post on Unintended Consequences, which discussed the wiretapping law and the holdup by the Democrats. I took his post and made it into a video, complete with music from Chopin and some slick transitions. Took me thirty minutes. If you are struggling to come up with online content - check out Flektor. It's free, and easy to use and embed on your site.

And for Obama's event. Here's a chance to hear him speak in an hour long format. It's a lot of information, and gives you a much better sense of what you're up against. Edwards event was a real eye-opener. It wasn't all soundbites and set piece speeches, which itself is extraordinary in presidential campaigns.

I haven't spent much time on MTV in many, many years. Sure, I'll turn on the occasional Yo Momma marathon to while away the hours, but when it comes to making money or getting involved in politics, MTV just doesn't strike me as the best place to make an impact with my time.

But I'm not a politician.

I'm doing some research for a client (more about that later), and I've been spending some time on RocktheVote.com and MySpace. My first impression, and I'm sure it's accurate, is the overwhelming liberal message you get at those sites. Maybe that's from years of watching Kurt Loder and hearing Rock Stars complain about the environment, but when looking through the actual Rock the Vote site, something odd struck me. Only liberal think tanks and non-profits partner with Rock the Vote.

We know that younger voters often skew liberal, but don't vote, and by the time they vote, they're married with kids and paying taxes, which makes them Republicans. After 9/11, and in the middle of a war, there was hope that our youth was growing up at a faster rate than previous generations. Recent polls show that not to be the case, but I wonder if that's because we're not doing enough to fight the "progressive message" in the online forums where youth hang out.

Check out the sponsor page at RockTheVote.com.

Acorn, League of Women Voters, NAACP, People For The American Way, and True Majority.

Where's the Heritage Foundation? AmericanSolutions? The Hoover Institute? AEI? Where are the Freedom Vets and Move America Forward (or maybe to feed conspiracy theories, the PR firm for the Swift Boat Vets)? The answer is we're nowhere to be found. We've given up on MTV and their viewers and then blame it on the youth when they don't understand the conservative message.

We know the Democrats spent 2004 (and 2006) trying to scare young voters by telling that Republican wars were going to lead to a military draft. The story, though denied by all major Republicans, is an effective tactic, and though we deny it in the major papers and on blogs - what happens when MTV tells the story?

If we're serious about combatting the liberal message, web-savvy conservative organizations have to get in the game.

It starts at Rock the Vote, but that's just one website. Where else are we dropping the ball with our youth?

If you want mastery of a subject, you have to practice your fundamentals. The fundamentals of good blogging are easy to learn, but most people fail to practice those fundamentals, and then wonder why their blog has no readership.

If this primer is too basic for you, great! If you're struggling building a readership, then you ought to read this with care, and follow it closely.

Building Traffic To Your Blog

One of the joys of blogging is knowing that other people are reading. Without that sense of connection, the effort it takes to write on your blog is seldom worth it. The entire purpose of the blog is to connect with other people, so without traffic, blogging often fails to make it onto our priority list.

That said, the obsession with chasing after more readers can be as detrimental to our blog’s health as a lack of readers. Blogging at its finest is about passion, and when it exists only for numbers, the readers can tell you lack passion.

Today I’m writing about increasing traffic to your blog, but before you take these steps, make sure that your reasons for doing so are clear in your head. Traffic = Influence (at least when it’s applied correctly) but the efforts to increase traffic can often ruin your desire to write. Writing for politics is very different than writing for personal satisfaction. The default assumption for a political blogger is that of a paid shill, so you have to work twice as hard to gain trust, and readership.

Traffic Builders:

1) Content: First and foremost - traffic is the result of high quality content written by you in the first person. Traffic is a function of stickiness, and all of the internet marketing in the world won’t keep readers at a site that’s poorly written.

This doesn’t mean you have to be a journalist or an English major to do well, but your take on the world has to be relevant, timely, and something that your target audience can relate to.

Political blogs can have a partisan slant, but it's important that your writing, especially if it's for a candidate, is dignified, fair, and accurate. Red meat may boost your numbers, but it ultimately cuts you off from civilized discourse. Your goal in writing should be mixing in search engine relevant content with facts and links that support your views. The goal is to influence and inform, not attack.

So pick a topic, one you’re an expert in or want to be an expert in, and start writing. To expand your writing, focus on issues that are related to your initial subject, and dig deeply into the subject matter. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about local or national stories - stay relevant and you’ll generate an audience.

2) Design and Naming: If you really want to have an influence with your blog, spring for a professional design and a url. Sites on blogspot, typepad, or wordpress can do well, but purchasing a name and not using a template tells readers that you aren't serious about sticking around. Think of it as buying a home versus staying with friends. If you’re trying to convince a community that you’re in it for the long haul, wouldn’t they believe you more if you put down roots?

As for cost of a design - you have to decide what your budget is, but the cost should reflect the level of your candidate. Presidential candidates need professional design. Local alderman can get away with something cheaper. Whatever you do, don't pay for a template from a design firm that copies over politicians. And don't spend a lot if all they are giving you is a template.

3) Comments: You’ve probably read this, but comments are a great way to build traffic. This is true, but only if you leave great comments that stay on topic at relevant sites. Comments are also not a one-time deal. If you want traffic from a site, you have to join their community and establish a reputation at that site as a regular blogger. Individual comments left on someone’s post that are off-topic, or are never followed up tend to be viewed negatively. And they should be. I delete comments from spammers and ignore those from people trying to take advantage of my traffic and Page Rank.

At the same time, I’m very curious about readers who leave comments that advance the discussion, and direct me back to a thoughtful blog in my area.

So don’t use comments to build traffic - join communities where comments are welcome, and the traffic will come from people who want to see what you have to say. The difference in those two strategies is all the difference.

4) Directories: Never pay for a directory, but if you see a free one, consider entering your blog and putting interesting information about your site. You can also do searches at Best of The Web, and on Google for “political blogs (your state)”, and “list of local blogs”. Don’t forget to sign up at Technorati.com and claim your blog. You’re given the opportunity to add tags describing your blog, which helps when people are looking for your topic.

5) Guest Blog: Once you’ve found some friends online, be willing to write posts in their areas of expertise as a guest blogger. Keep your eyes open for people who need someone to blogsit for a week or so, and look for group blogs where they are looking for new writers.

These suggestions are basic, but when it comes to blogging, its the basics that are the foundation for growth. Overall, remember that blogging is about community. Your goal is to find groups of like-minded bloggers online and combine your voices for more influence. You're reading an example right now, here at Tech Republican.

My job in the regular world is to market product and services for companies. My specialty is the online world, and so my expertise is in identifying and connecting internet communities.

As I read through the political blogs discussing, or rather bemoaning the failure of the right to capitalize on the internet, it strikes me that the problem is one of desire, not talent.

Look at the blogroll on the right here (I'm sure that is no accident). If you gave me NZ Bear, Patrick Ruffini, Wizbang and Polipundit (not to slight the others), I could build you a community that dwarfed anything the left has imagined. Why haven't we done it? Money. Conservatives tend to like to get paid for what they do, and most of the successful conservative bloggers have jobs that pay well.

The sad thing is it wouldn't take that much to build a solid organization. There are probably 5,000 blogs nationwide that could be organized into a conservative community and propped up with a Conservative Advertisers Network where politicians could buy geo-targeted ads and in-text ad links. For say, $500,000 total, we could work with one of the existing communities and grow it into a conservative powerhouse.

Any conservative George Soros out there want to pitch in some cheddar? Think of it this way - you'll make more in a business-friendly environment then you will under a socialist one. I'm willing to give the set of plans to the right people, if anyone is interested.

We're always accused of having a right wing noise machine, but the truth is we need to build one on the internet. The "machine" won't do the bidding of the party, but as long as we have sound principles, they will back conservative government. Any takers?

One of the benefits of working outside of politics is the ability to bring in experience that has never been tried - and to come up with ideas that aren't held back by notions of what works in politics.

I've volunteered for campaigns. They wanted me to come in make phone calls while editing an Excel sheet. I was stuck in a cubicle making calls next to an executive who dressed like he made 200K a year and a housewife who fretted over imposing on people during dinner.

The truth is the modern campaign needs strong backs and grunt labor because they are set up that way. The lack of grunts to work in political campaign is not taken into account, so we take highly qualified people, and try to square peg/round hole their skills and the campaign's needs.

So the question - is how do you engage people - truly engage them? It's no different of a question than that asked by every manager out there, but for some reason, our campaigns think in narrow boxes, and then complain about the results.

So I say let's think big. Let's bring in people from outside the political spectrum. Let's bring in call-center operators - customer service specialists, recruiters, and other people whose job is to find, train and motivate customer-facing employees, often for short periods of time. Let's bring in caterers, and wedding planners and logistics personnel, and start thinking what needs to be done, and what kinds of people have the skill that we need. I'm not saying a wedding planner will be the next Karl Rove, but if we learn to ask the opinions of the people we regularly run into, we're more likely to get expert advice on how to organize and run grassroots organizations.

We are facing a major uphill battle in the next 18 months - and most of the odds are against us, certainly in the House and Senate, but also for the White House. Yes, the Republicans have a vaunted 72 hour campaign, but why every year are we forced to wait until Labor Day to start campaigning and take ourselves out of a polling hole?

I hate to say it - but's time we started thinking outside of the box. And the people who can help you are already in front of you. Are you going to ask them for help?

If you're using blogs in your campaign outreach strategy, it's important you understand how to track the effectiveness of those blogs.

The following is a primer on how to track conversations in the blogosphere.

Permalinks, Addresses and URL’s:

The first thing to learn is your website URL. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, and is the “address” of your site on the internet. http://techrepublican.com is an example. A permalink is the address, (or URL) of a specific entry, or blogpost. (The word blog usually means the main site, but some people mistake a "blog" for a "blogpost")

When searching, Type in your main or homepage url to find people linking to you. (A note: www.techrepublican.com is a different address than http://techrepublican.com. It goes to the same place, but for best results in searches, skip the www)

Technorati:

This is the big daddy of blog search. Technorati allows you to search by url, by tags, and in a directory.

Step1: Claim your blog. Technorati has to know you are there to track what you are doing. Claim your blog, sign in to an account, and list a bunch of keyword that people can use to find your site. There are 33,911 blogs tagged politics already in Technorati, so be creative with your tags.

Step 2: URL search:

Go to the advanced search section of Technorati and look for "Find Posts that link to:"

Type the URL of your blog into the box and click search. What comes up are all of the blogs that currently link to your blog. You can rank them by freshness, or authority, and it is the most comprehensive list. Not everyone is listed, but Technorati is a great way to find out who is linking to you.

Step 3: Searching in Tags.

Tags are labels that people put into their post. Wordpress and Typepad allow you to customize your site to add Technorati tags, and it is a powerful way to push your posts to a larger topic (in the Typepad screen for composing a post, look for customize the display of the page).

Check out “immigration,” as a tag, or “Lindsey Graham and amnesty” Thre are 1260 posts on Senator Graham and amnesty, but over 362,000 for immigration. The more specific you are in your tags, the better chance you have of being found.

Step 4: Search in Directory.

Back in the Advanced Search, look for the directory search at the bottom. The tags you wrote when you claimed your blog place you in categories in the directory. While a tag search looks for individual posts, a directory search looks for blog descriptions.

Advanced Users: To create an RSS feed of blogs that link to your site, type <http://feeds.technorati.com/search/www.yoururl.com> and add it to your RSS reader.

Google Searches: The simplest way to track your blog in Google, or any search engine, is to type [link: http://www.yourblogurl.com].This should bring up a list of all the pages cached in Google that link specifically to your website. This works fine for high ranking blogs, but it’s not complete, and doesn’t tell you a time reference. For great ways to use Google to search out all kinds of topics, check out their operator cheat sheet

Google Alerts: Login to Google (create a personal account if you do not already have one), and create Google alerts. These e-mails track keywords, names, and websites you enter and forward them to you when Google first caches them (that’s not a typo – caching refers to saving the page on Google serves (pronounced caaatch, not ketch). Google alerts work both to tell when someone is linking to you and when they are speaking of you without a link.

Search engines all have different algorithms, so for fun, type your name and blog into different search engines to get different results: http://Sphere.com, http://eprecis.com, (MSN Live) http://live.com, http://Ask.com, http://dogpile.com

Summary: There are literally hundreds of different ways to track yourself in the blogosphere. Sites like Talkdigger.com, Blogpulse.com, and services that can cost upwards of $10,000 a month are available. Find the ones that you like best, and join in the conversation.

Forgive me for tooting my own horn, but I wanted to show an example of user generated video that takes less than an hour to create. The quality isn't good enough for prime time, though a couple of high-resolution photos and better sound would do the trick. Sometimes. Allahpundit's Dean Photoshop project in 2004 was a massive hit, because it was very, very funny. With the right message, targeting the right weak points for candidates, the bloggers in your districts can have an impact on the race. They won't know until they practice.

Video from 24thstate