Once again, economic and political leaders will be flocking to Davos for the annual meeting of The World Economic Forum later this week.

Last year the group showed impressive use of social media, and this year it’s upped its game again. Aiming to provide “unprecedented access, the general public can actively participate in a number of sessions through video submissions, blog comments, tweets and quick polls”. WEF’s annual meeting really does lead the way in terms of opening up what is traditionally a closed debate to a broader audience.

The central hub seems to be a Twitter feed with over 1.5 million followers that will provide live updates, combined with coverage from over 250 individual members also using the site. For the first time, a feed also has been set up for participants to leave comments on a dedicated feed (though currently it’s protected, and doesn’t follow anyone). Is this a group feed for those inside the event, or will it gather input from those watching from the outside? Time will tell.

WEF has also ticked all of the usual boxes; a hashtag, twibbon, short url to the site, but the micro-blogging content will also be translated into Chinese via Sina.com, and aggregated into one stream via FriendFeed. On top of this, there’s an official blog, as well as a Netvibes feed called Davos Conversation – which trawls the web for anyone blogging about the event and then pulls the posts into one stream.

Facebook will also play a large part in the events, as WEF will poll feedback from its group on the social networking site in real-time. The results will be fed back into certain sessions,  helping to shape the debate.

Some of the larger news organisations covering the event are following suit, such as Reuters, which has sent out around 20 multimedia journalists to the meeting. “One of our main aims is to give the general public greater access to a gathering which takes place in a glitzy ski resort and is generally seen as schmooze-session for the world’s business and political elite,” said Ross Chainey, Online Editor and Web Producer, Reuters UK.

“Elsewhere, the WEF has itself put in a great deal of effort to open up the meeting to the masses. It has put together Twitter lists of well known attendees and journalists who will be tweeting from Davos. So while getting accreditation to attend the WEF meeting in Davos is a tough task, staying up-to-date and participating in the discussion is not,” he continued.

Competitions have appeared on both MySpace and LinkedIn to send a reporter to Davos; the former teamed up with the Wall Street Journal, whereas the later ran Davos Debates. As in past years, YouTube has set up a ‘video corner’ at the Congress Center where participants are encouraged to answer questions.

Video-wise, the plenary sessions will be streamed live onto forumblog.org, made available on WEF’s Livestream channel and in HD on the forum’s website or YouTube channel (as above). The best pictures taken at the Annual Meeting will be made available free of charge under the creative commons licence on Flickr.

This is truly the most comprehensive social media integration we’ve ever seen for an event of this nature. By providing this array of ways to get involved, the internal discussions become accessible to those watching from outside. This effectively replicates what was achieved at G20 London by taking bloggers into the Summit, but on a much larger scale.

One of the main reasons that this works so well is the very clear outline of what’s going on, which sits on forumblog.org; a central hub for all information on the event. This hub and spoke model makes it easy to find whatever form of content you prefer, encouraging people to get involved, talk about the event and keep coming back.