Did you know that hospitals have been using social media networks to streamline healthcare processes for quite a few years now? Even in 2009, more than 100 hospitals across the globe had presence on various social media networks, including Facebook and Twitter. Now, the number has increased at least 5-6 times!

That should not come as a surprise to anyone, though. Hospitals are one of the busiest types of organizations out there, and could certainly benefit from the widespread reach that social media networks offer. Picture someone on the street spotting a wounded person and tweeting it right away on the Twitter stream of the hospital’s helpline. Or perhaps a blood bank sending direct messages to doctors about the groups of blood they have in stock. When shared properly and at the correct moment, such information can potentially save hundreds, or even thousands of lives each day!

However, the catch here is to use the social media networks properly. Without that, all efforts would be in vain. Here are some of the conditions that a hospital must fulfill, for example, in order to benefit substantially from a social media project:

1. Social media savvy staff: At least 25% (or more) of the staff members need to have personal accounts on Twitter, and/or Facebook, and need to have a habit of using those networks on a regular basis. That way, those employees will be able to teach other staff the proper ways of using social media networks, and allow the hospital to start the project on the right foot.

2. Starting on a small scale, and spreading out slowly from there: Simply designing a highly attractive Facebook page or a Twitter account and starting to post updates aggressively is not the way a social media campaign should start. The ideal way to start would be to find out how many patients visiting the hospital have presence in social media, by running a small survey. Once that has been found, the hospital authorities should start with Twitter, if possible. Twitter accounts are fairly easy to manage, and putting a small team of employees on the job should be enough. As more and more people start following the account, the hospital staff could start working on building a Facebook page.

3. Hiring a social media firm to handle the job: Hiring a reputed social media company to take care of the launching of the project as well as maintenance of the same would be a very smart idea. That way, the entire project will be carried out smoothly, without a hitch. Besides, the employees of the social media company can also teach the hospital staff the proper ways of using social media.

It can be pretty iffy for hospitals to delve into the ever changing world of social media without proper guidance.  Proper usage of the networks and assistance from a social media company would be great ways of ensuring that the projects go on smoothly, and allow the hospital to reap maximum benefits from the project.

Reaching out to prospective customers via social media networks like Facebook and Twitter is certainly one of the best ways to increase the size of your consumer base. However, be sure to approach them on their favorite networks as much as possible. The best way to do this is to ask a third party service provider to get it done for you. Ask them to build a list of contact details of targeted groups of individuals, with their preferred social media networks listed in the records.

This way, you should be able to craft your promotional updates to suit the preferences of different users. For instance, users preferring Twitter are usually known to prefer short ads that state the intended message in as few words as possible. Give them a hint of what you can offer in as few words as possible (less than 100 characters for the message aside from the link is a great combination), in order to have a higher chance of attracting their attention.

Facebook users prefer slightly longer messages, and usually won’t mind having a picture in the update too, but try not to get carried away. Keeping the content within 50-60 words is still a good idea. Ideally, you should give them an idea about the products or services you offer, and then include a link to the page where the details are given.

Brevity is always appreciated on social media networks, as long as you can express the information properly. Make short, easy-to-read promotional messages on social media networks, and you can be rest assured of getting more responses from your target audiences than ever before.

Did you know that the number of social media users in India has been increasing at the rate of 100% with each passing year, for about three years now? At this rate, 45 million Indians will be on social media by the first quarter of 2012! And not just that – 67% Indians with access to the Internet now go through online reviews of a product before buying the same!

As time progresses, this combination could sure make India a haven for retailers from across the globe. As long as retailers focus their marketing efforts on some specific social media networks, they are guaranteed to get plenty of attention from customer bases across the country. These include:

1. Facebook: With more than 37 million users accessing the network every day, India has the third highest concentration of Facebook users among all countries that allow citizens to access it. This kind of penetration among the general population, coupled with the fact that Facebook allows retailers to  build pages for business purposes, makes targeting the network for product promotions quite a lucrative proposition for most companies.

2. Twitter: India is at 10th position in the world at the moment, in terms of number of users accessing Twitter on a regular basis. Since tweets can be received by users even on simple SMS enabled mobile phones, this makes it particularly useful to India-based retailers. By using Twitter, even the most frugal entrepreneur can exploit the popularity of the network, and reach out to more prospective customers than before, while spending very little.

3. LinkedIn: Simply reaching out to consumers may not be enough at all times, given that some entrepreneurs run B2B companies, which service other businesses, or different business fields. LinkedIn makes it easy for these entrepreneurs to get in touch with potential clients. After all, the 9.03 million users of the network across the country do include entrepreneurs, and lots of them, too!

Social media networks are growing by leaps and bounds in India, and in the coming years, the trend is definitely going to continue. Add to that the fact, more and more wallet-conscious shoppers are making it a point to check product reviews before investing in those, and there isn’t any doubt left that social media networks are soon going to control the way retailers promote their businesses. If you are an entrepreneur and have not yet started exploiting the tremendous potential of these promotional tools then, to put it lightly, you are definitely missing something!

There is one major mistake that social media marketers often make these days, which stunts the success rates of their campaigns in the early stages. Do you know what that is? It is their ignorance of how to prove the popularity of their campaigns, by showcasing the emotions of their existing fans, customers, and visitors.

Avoid this deathtrap… here’s how!

Most social media marketers are very enthusiastic about the ‘likes” and “follows”, but stop short of doing anything worthwhile with the comments posted on their social media networks. This is something you need to avoid. Got a fine comment about your newest product, posted on your Twitter account by a satisfied customer? Well, retweet it right away, and if possible, get it posted on your Facebook page (with credit given to the customer, of course)!

Did a customer leave a compliment about a service that you provide, on your Facebook page? Well, why not “like” the comment right away, and post it (simply copy and paste it) on your Twitter feed as well?

Showcasing the emotions of your customers on social media channels act as irrefutable testimonials for your products and services. If you wish to see your social media campaign grow with each passing day, then this is one of the steps you should take right now!

Any entrepreneur, who has been promoting his products and/or services on Twitter for some time is likely to realize that it is actually a pretty difficult task to find new customers this way. Why is it so? Is it simply because Twitter posts are text only, which people do not like to read as often as the multimedia-rich Facebook posts? But if that was indeed the case, how could Dell (come on, it was one of the biggest success stories related to Twitter, ever) succeed in selling millions of PCs via Twitter promotions alone?

So, yes, it is definitely possible to boost your sales figures to a great extent by promoting your products and services via Twitter. The only fact you need to remember when tweeting is that people do not always want to read about your company. Be sure to post updates about interesting information regarding your industry, and do not be afraid to praise achievements of fellow entrepreneurs. Contrary to popular belief, this will not channel all the traffic to your rivals’ networks. Rather, people will see you as a generous person, and be more interested in reading whatever you post.

Bottom line – when you’re on Twitter, be social! As long as you get this one thing done right, the rest will fall in place, just like that.