This morning, I woke up early, threw on my "Blog Off" T-Shirt and got ready for an UnConference at PodCampDC. So far, I'm learning many cool things from folks like Christopher Penn & Joel Mark Witt about marketing online and finding a place for social media.

This topic is important to TechRepublican readers. We aim to establish our organization's/campaign's/member's message or brand online, but often our bosses don' t buy the hype.

Maybe The Powers that Be don't always understand the words we use or don't understand how new media will effect the bottomline. We can't assume that it's because they're not using the technology.

Christopher Penn's Talking Points:

Every organization should go where the people are. (Did you know that Myspace currently has a user population that surpasses that of Indonesia or even of the United States?)

When talking to your boss, find the Old Media Analogy:

*Google Reader is your own personal newspaper

*RSS Feeds are online deliveries of your newspaper

*Social Networks are the new water cooler

In reality, new media isn't so much new as it is a different way of communicating to different people, on their terms.

Penn goes on to say that being online is essential, but not enough.

To be effective, you have to be a regular publisher of content.

You have to have something to say.

You have to have a goal.

Otherwise, your boss will not see the big picture.

ID your brand. Penn quoted someone who said that a brand is merely an "emotional aftertaste" that results from a unique experience with your product.

Test market your brand. Get out there.

Joel Mark Witt says, Don't ask permission, just do...then emphasize results.

Social media is like a no man's land in which organizations can open up a new world of opportunities. We need to break out of our comfort zone and snap out of our geek bubble.

Translate new media language into words your boss can understand and relate to.

This is just a snippet of what's going on here. We're having some fun.

Up next: Andy Carvin & Jim Long on "Social Media & New Journalism" -- expect a post on how twitter is changing journalism and affecting information distribution. See Also: Patrick Ruffini's The Year of Twitter.

The controversy over MoveOn's General Betray Us ad reminds us that the best online strategy is still about getting the basics right. In this case: tapping into the visceral reaction to an event within the first 12-24 hours and inviting your supporters to participate to respond in ways that count. And you'll primarily use the most unglamorous, Web 1.0 club in the bag: e-mail.

An outrage like General Betray Us doesn't come along very often when you're the party in power. So I was pretty disappointed when, in the maelstrom that unfolded on Monday, the Republican candidates for President chose to respond by press release, rather than by writing a personal note of disgust to their email list. By sending a well-crafted email, not only could the candidate have gotten his initial response across to a larger audience (the essential principle of "Big Seed Marketing") but he could have more effectively stayed in the news cycle with an action item he could follow up on over the next couple of days. Most reporters are on your email list, so they won't miss it if you break news through the medium. And for those that aren't, you follow up with a press release announcing the email. This is basic blocking and tackling.

Of all the major GOP players, only the Republican National Committee -- my old stomping ground -- used the medium to respond in a timely manner, sending an appeal for money out on Monday night. While I expect that this email and others like it did quite well, I think the opportunity to list-build was even greater. Fundraising is generally a one-off. The people you sign up using a petition or who co-sign a letter stay with you for an entire campaign -- and beyond.

The key to being effective in this operational window is building an action item with actual news value. And it could have been as basic as asking your supporters to sign on to a letter to Hillary Clinton asking her to denounce the MoveOn ad. When she doesn't -- you get to send another email telling people she's ignored the voice of the people and asking people to take further action, like donating to defeat Hillary Clinton, or doing letters to the editor, or emailing Pinch Sulzberger about the New York Times' "family discount." Either way, the candidates would have gotten an automatic story out of this.

The one candidate who fundraised effectively off the controversy was Rudy Giuliani, who devised his own New York Times ad using MoveOn's dramatic discount as a hook to re-enter the discussion. Rudy engaged the medium effectively by asking people to participate in his response, rather than just donating to fight the generic MoveOn/Hillary bogeyman. Now, I don't quite get how spending $181,000, or $167,000, or even $65,000 on one page of newsprint is cost-effective -- unless your message is explosive like MoveOn's -- but if there is anything this has controversy has shown, it's that a spread in the Times still has a certain aura about it.

Still, I was hoping the Republican candidates would use this moment as an opportunity to dramatically beef up their email lists by signing up tens of thousands of outraged conservatives.

When critics point to the Republican Party's problems online, my response is that our problems aren't online. Our problems are offline, in a cranky base, in a reluctance to truly motivate and inspire cause-oriented Republican voters, and in the fact that we are in power in the midst of an unpopular war. Many of these apparent problems go away or get a lot better once we unify against Hillary as the nominee. If this were simply a contest of Web sites and technology -- GeorgeWBush.com vs. JohnKerry.com in 2004, GOP.com vs. Democrats.org, Voter Vault vs. Demzilla, microtargeting vs. what exactly? -- Republicans would win hands down.

Or at least, that seems to have been the case until now.

I've worked with enough of the developers and tech visionaries on the Republican side to know that the talent to build great online experiences, ones that connect you directly with your voters, exists in abundance. But recently, this approach has lost ground to a theory that the best way to communicate with your base is through third parties like bloggers and social networks. That means Republicans are far out front on things like blogger conference calls, hashing out legislation on Red State, and Twittering. And they're quietly losing ground on the basics of online campaigning: e-mail lists, Web development, and video.

At the end of May, the NRCC unveiled phase two of the Real Democrat Story. The site, which was first launched back in March, now includes 21 Democrat targets and new features such as web ads and a blog.

It’s our hope that The Real Blog can serve as a forum for discussing the issues that matter most to people and an opportunity to expose the broken promises and hypocrisy of Congressional Democrats. The NRCC would like to use this blog to create a two-way dialogue where folks come to participate in the process, share their thoughts and provide insights into what we at the NRCC believe is "The Real Democrat Story."

What makes this blog unique will not only be the content generated by NRCC staff and Members of Congress, but it will also feature contributors from across the country who have expressed interest in blogging on behalf of the NRCC. Already the NRCC has featured guest bloggers from Kansas, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

When we initially rolled-out the website, www.TheRealDemocratStory.com, in March, we asked people to sign-up to blog and the response was so overwhelming that we created a platform for their voices to be heard. Along with adding additional files on the Real Democrat Story, the NRCC expanded its viral marketing campaign and has sent targeted emails into each district and will run banner ads across the country. The banner ad buys, along with the emails, will reach nearly 8 million people in an effort to capture tens of thousands of additional email addresses.

The story on the expansion of the Real Democrat Story has already appeared on Drudge, and was featured on page one of the Politico.

* Josh Shultz is the New Media Director for the NRCC