Here are some thoughts about new media that can pretty well be implemented from the state rep races to the white house in my humble opinion (and scarily enough, I have put a substantial amount of time into thinking about such things).

1. If you have a website on your letterhead/business card/yard sign/lit, etc. you better have a $#&% website.  The domain being parked at a hosting service, a “coming soon” message or the old 404: website could not be found are not acceptable substitutes.

2. If the candidate is visiting the website, fire the candidate.  If the candidate wants input on website content, lock the candidate in a room for 48 hours without food and water as punishment.  First, there is a bit of art and science to this stuff that should be handled by the so-called “pro’s,” but more importantly the website is a GOTV tool - it is in the infancy of voter persuasion and fundraising, which is where the candidate SHOULD be spending his or her time.

3. Are you holding an event?  If it isn’t digitally captured you are doing your campaign a disservice.  Recording technology is such that there is no excuse for not having video and audio, and there are significant benefits, not least of which are rapid response, ability to correct misquotes, and the creation of original content for websites.  It won’t all go up on the web, but the days for creating a digital campaign archive has arrived.

4. I really hate when I hear a campaign say they don’t want a blog or website because it is prime material for oppo research.  What, are you running the candidate in a cocoon?  You have lit, you have signs, you have public records, you have incumbent votes, you have old media - why exactly do you think the website is suddenly going sink your campaign (and how little confidence do you have in the ability to mold a message that you think your OWN CONTROLLED MESSAGE will be fodder for oppo research?)  This may be my #1 new media pet peeve, I can feel my blood pressure rising as I write about it.

5. You better be doing more than the three page website (welcome, bio, issues).  The key is to incorporate original content.  Do not dump press releases onto the news page AND the blog.  Also, the website domain isn’t the only tool.  You should be on myspace, facebook and other social networking sites.  Finally, make it easy for people to get information - RSS feeds, bookmarking links and tools for news aggregaters will ensure regular readership.

6. Credentialing.  Do you have web folks on your media list?  You better.  They’re going to write about your campaign faster, longer and in more opinionated form than old media.  Fostering that relationship can build stories that the old media won’t cover until it gains traction elsewhere.

7.  Finally, don’t make your website or relationship with new media reactive.  Create action alerts - invoke activity.  Letters to the editor, calling talk radio, donating money, volunteering on the campaign are all things that should be encouraged and pushed.  I know a few campaign caught on to this last year when I appeared on both their media list and campaign volunteer list.  New media is a hybrid, treat it as such.