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!

Social media is being condemned across the globe as a major killer of employee productivity. Honestly speaking, there may be some truth to this. Employees checking for updates posted on their social media accounts every few minutes or so are obviously likely to remain distracted. This could lead to mistakes being made in work, and result in poor employee productivity because of the time being lost in the process.

However, this alone cannot be a reason to condemn social media altogether, especially since it can be used to boost the popularity of a business organization to a great extent. For instance, employees can be encouraged to post intelligently written updates about upcoming products and services, in order to create a buzz about those, way before those are officially launched. The key is to inspire employees to do this while also taking care of their job responsibilities. Of course, setting aside an hour a day for the employees to do this can be a good step.

Social media networks, especially Facebook and Twitter, can be great tools for increasing the popularity of a company. And employees can be the best people to ensure that social media networks indeed bring in new visitors on a regular basis. As long as social media usage of employees is carefully monitored, there should be no problems at all.

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.