We at LDV towers are proud to announce a new strategy for Liberal Democrat Voice which will increase our influence within and beyond the party and leverage the capabilities of social media technologies to their full potential. This strategy makes full use of the unique placement we have as ‘our place to talk’ and premier online Liberal Democrat presence, as well as our regular authoritative members’ surveys.

The strategy has three essential, intertwined and synergistic elements:

1. We will be moving the site to the Nationbuilder platform as is now used for the Liberal Democrats main website and being rolled out to other party sites. This will enable us to make full use of members’ social media presences for viral marketing, and extend capabilities to email, text and telephone. We will be able to build a real online community, with dynamic user profiles, greater opportunities for interaction and new fundraising opportunities.

2. We will step up our operations as a pressure group within the party for more authentic Liberal Democrat voice within the party. Thanks to our regular member’s surveys we have a clearer view of what our members stand for than either the Social Liberal Forum or Liberal Reform, and a greater active user base/membership than either. And if you think we are getting it wrong, make sure you sign up for the forum, and respond to the next survey. This aspect of our work will be branded the Liberal Democrat Voice Forum, or LDVF.

3. We will combine the capabilities of Nationbuilder with the policy and position formation and promotion work of LDVF to form a revolutionary new way for you to advance our policy ideas, to respond constructively to them and vote for them, to earn and spend “political capital” points and to campaign far and wide within the party and beyond. To protect this vision, any malcontents who express views that are unconstructive or egregiously off-message can be down-voted, and lose political capital points. Our moderators, or “community organisers”, will ensure that down-votes are not cast for inappropriate reasons.

Key ways to earn political capital and greater influence within the community include

• Recruiting new members to the Forum
• Writing interesting pieces that are in line with the views of LDVF
• Creative on-message use of twitter, facebook and other social media (except Google+)
• And, of course, donations!

The most successful and on-message members will be eligible to apply to be on our slate for the Federal committee elections, subject to the co-editors’ approval.

The transition will be simple enough. Existing user accounts will be migrated to the new platform, and if you use the same password for facebook or twitter, this will be automatically linked in too. Your facebook and twitter accounts will then be used by us to promote the messages we feel are most in line with the views of our members. You can also install our iOS/Android app, which will text and email all your contacts when appropriate.

You don’t have too wait long. This is all happening at 11.59am today.