At the beginning of this month, a wonderful thing happened to the GOP. The Republican National Committee (RNC) pried away one of Facebook’s top engineers — Andy Barkett, if you want his name — by naming him its chief technology officer. Barkett’s overarching goal in the coming months will be to reinvent the GOP’s image in many parts of the country, as well as the projection of that image — a difficult task, but a necessary one nonetheless.

For the Republicans, it’s just another small step in the process of broadening the party’s outreach to an ever-changing electorate — one with more Hispanics now than ever before and youth voters who actually decided to turn out for once, albeit for a young senator from Illinois. As we all know, politics are just as much about perception as they are policy. Sometimes, it’s better to be relatable and sleek than qualified and shrewd.

(Yes, that was aimed primarily at the President.)

We’ve heard it all before, but the message really needs to stick if the GOP is to bounce back from the failures of 2008 and 2012. Yes, the batch of candidates primed to run in 2016 is as promising as they are charismatic — Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, and Chris Christie are all young and energetic and committed to the conservative cause. And yes, the next presidential election cycle will spell the much-needed end of President Obama’s failed second term — the Republicans should have momentum on their side, just like the Democrats did in 2008. But, there still remains a presentation problem.

For a lot of voters — especially college students and recent grads — the Republican Party is just a collection of old white men bickering and yelling about cutting benefits and sending kids to war. Again, back to perception. The GOP just isn’t cool anymore.

That’s why the recruitment of vested technology buffs and branding experts, such as Andy Barkett, is oh so important. The Republicans need to be cool once again — or, at least, they can’t afford for the Democrats to appear so cool in relation. The future of the party is connected to young candidates and social media platforms and modern slogans.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you look at it that way), the days of those John McCain and Dick Cheney types running the party will soon come to an end, as it will be handed down to a group of fresher faces with fresher ideas. The future is in using new technologies — Facebook, Twitter, or whatever else gets invented in the next few years — to sell yourself and your beliefs. And I personally believe that a revolutionized GOP can still reach out to younger voters and skeptical Hispanics, much like how Ronald Reagan connected with various demographics in 1984.

The technology frontier is an important new hurdle for Republicans. They should take reasonable steps to ensure that they catch up to the Democrats on the selling and branding fronts — which they have done to some degree since November — and engage in a renaissance of sorts. Change will come if the Republican Party sets that as a primary goal, and this past election cycle was the kind of wake-up call that’s often needed to spur action.

The GOP needs to be cool again, and it will be in due time if the appropriate steps are taken. Andy Barkett is certainly one in the right direction.