This is a guest post from Rodrigo Salazar from SMW Bogotá.

Last year’s Social Media Week was crazy in Bogotá. The event was well received by the audience and huge anticipation was created around the speaker’s roster. Our social networks were full of interactions with assistants, speakers, brands, sponsors and people that were interested in joining the conversation from places all over the globe. The main channels we used were Facebook, and this should be no surprise, we are the 14th country with the most users in the world; and Twitter, with some studies claiming we are at almost 9 million users. We also had some promotional videos running on YouTube and our global communications strategy was very simple: get the attention of everyone in order to get a full house during the whole week.

And we made it happen! In September 2011, we had more than 30 events during the week, and a full house almost every day. The main idea for our community management strategy was to have live tweeting and Facebook postings with verbatims, quotes, pictures and information about the conferences and the upcoming schedule. This was a hard task for just one person. We were so excited and involved with it that we had our Twitter account suspended for not taking limits into account (it won’t happen again this year!).

From that experience, we learned a lot. So, for 2012, we decided to have 2 Community Managers. With a twist. None will be from the our team in Bogotá. We want someone from the audience; someone that really wants to be a part of this wonderful experience and that is really into social media and wants to showcase their talent. That’s our strategy for this year’s event: open it to the people and let THEM be a part of it.

It is very simple: all you have to do is upload a video (30 sec. max.) to the SMW Bogotá Facebook Fan Page and get people give their feedback, opinion and arguments on why you should get picked. At the end of the opening (August 16th), a specialized judging panel will pick 5 semifinalists that will have personal interviews. On Friday, August 31st, the 2 winners will be announced.

This year’s social media coverage will have to be more professional and will be on more channels: Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Pinterest and Instagram. This is why we need the best talent out there!

Social media and community management are on the rise in Colombia, and there’s great talent all over the place. This is an opportunity to be a part of social media’s biggest and most important conference of the globe and to show Bogotá, Colombia and the world that we are leaders in digital communications.