It is a surprise that not many small businesses are using social media to help market and promote their products and services. While the low numbers of participation could be due to simply not knowing how to use this medium. It’s still worth the time and effort, and the benefits are unlimited.

Here are some tips and advice to help you get started.

Register at ZaaBiz for business driven social networking. Choose a business network available is within your interests and goals. The main home page has a “sign up’ button. Simply click and add your information. Join and get a feel of how social media works and just take it from there.

Its best to learn how the network flows and simply observe. Take notes of what seems to work, or not work, what you like about the site and so forth. What are the members chatting about, what are the popular discussions. Is there real activity or very little movement on the site.

What are your goals? Are you looking to use the medium to gain new clients, keep in touch with current ones, check out the competition? Setting up a plan will help you review your accomplishments as well as areas of improvement.

An vital part to an effective social media campaign is to keep track of who may be chatting about your business or company, what are they saying, and how is the community are reacting to it. Monitoring what may be said about your business will will help you tweak your marketing plan and benefit from it…it may even help you gain new business.

Although your goal may be to gain new business, don’t come across as just business. Interact and be social. You’re time on social network does not have to be all business. Being more real like sharing your day to day comings and goings, special events, likes and dislikes will make you more approachable.

Ask for feedback, reviews and insight to help you reach your target more effectively. One powerful use for social media in business is as a customer service tool. Instead of waiting for a customer to air a complaint, use social media as a way to engage and interact with your audience. And be sure to thank everyone who chimes in individually.

Your profiles, comments, posts and conversations should stay true to your company’s overall mission and values. If more than one person is posting on behalf of your company, it’s vital to have a standard tone and guidelines for consistency.

A recent survey of the internet usage among Indians by ‘Google Trends’ – a search trend service by Google, depicts that Indians search for topics that enable them make money through internet. The research explores Indians searching for terms like ‘Stock Market’, ‘Bear Market’, ‘Bull Market’, ‘Finance Jobs’ and ‘IT Jobs’.

‘Share Market’ a term popular in India is most searched on internet by Indians either living in India or NRI’s living in countries like Singapore and HongKong. Interestingly, surfers from Oman are also interested in Indian Stock Market. The term ‘Indian Shares’, is most searched by Omani internet users followed by those who reside in UAE, Singapore and Australia. Likewise, even the term ‘Indian Equities’ is searched from these countries apart from Indian internet users. The keyword ‘Stock Tips’ is searched most from India depicting how investors value stock market tips in India. In India, the diamond city Surat googles the term ‘Stock Tips’ the most. From the research it seems that Indians are also interested in the NewYork stock exchange, as the term ‘NYSE’ is most by Indians after Singapore.

Reliance Industries is the most searched corporation when it comes to the stock market. The keyword ‘Reliance Industries’ is extremely popular among citizens of UK and USA.

In addition to the interest in stock market, Indians search for job online. Two most popular sectors seems to be Finance and IT. ‘Finance Jobs’ seems to be surfed most by netizens from Indian, UAE, South Africa and UK.

The word ‘finance jobs’ has been the googled the most number of times by net-surfers from Pakistan. India, the UAE, South Africa and the UK also figures in top search location list. ‘Bear market’ has been googled the most from Singapore, Hong Kong, the US and India, while the ‘bull market’ has been searched the maximum number of times by Indians. The term ‘IT Jobs’ is the second most popular term googled by Indians when it boils down to job search.

The search trends showcase that Indians are more interested to make money on Internet rather than spending time on listening music or streaming videos. Further, this research could be interesting for Business Networking companies like ZaaBiz which offer potential job opportunities via networking, tips on financial instruments and stock market via its business groups and an opportunity to network with members who have similar business interest.

Cheers!!! Keep Networking!!!

Google 41% emerges as most preferred source of information for Indian youngsters in the age group of 12 and 18, largely studying in English medium schools, and living in urban India, according to “TCS Generation Web 2.0 Trends’ - a comprehensive nationwide study across 12 Indian cities. Print (26%) and TV (25%) are the next important source of information.

Kolkata 77 % has the highest number of students using internet. Library usage amongst Cochin students is highest nationally 14% while Bhubaneshwar 45% and Lucknow 42% lead in information sourced through television. Mumbai at 12% prefer TV the least. The nationwide study captures the trends and pulse of the youth across India with a clear focus on information, technology and aspirations.

Blogging in metros revolves largely around their everyday life. Bangalore is the blogging capital of India, with 66% of students being part of blogging / social networking scene, against 39% nationally. More students in Mumbai (60%) and Ahmedabad(57%) read about film and celebrity blogs than youth in any other city.

Bangalore and Hyderabad 33% each students prefer blogging onstudies and school, highest nationally. With ZaaBiz’s focus on business networking and business groups will gain a major impetus due to a substatinal penetration of internet and web2.0 among Indian youth.

Here is an important piece of advice for all ZaaBiz members. The usage shortcut Ctrl+C in the computer is not safe and this could be harmful especially if critical details like credit card number is copied. The copied data used by the shortcut is easily accessible on the internet when one visits websites that uses javascripts and ASP or any server side application.

Figure out the magnitude of the problem yourself if you are not convinced. Try to copy some text and visit website sourcecodesworld.com/special/clipboard.asp, a website that provides free source codes and projects. Without using the paste option the text will be pasted automatically. The website just provides an example of what could potentially happen to you, especially if you have copied your credit card details, bank details or any other sensitive information.

According to a report the number of internet users worldwide is expected to touch 2.2 billion by 2013 and India is projected to have the third largest online population during the same time. The number of people online around the world will grow more than 45 per cent to 2.2 billion users by 2013 and Asia will continue to be the biggest Internet growth engine.

India will be the third largest internet user base by 2013 - with China and the US taking the first two spots. The report noted that emerging markets like India would see a growth of 10 to 20 per cent by 2013. The percentage of those in Asia will increase from 38 per cent to 43 per cent and Latin America will remain steady at about 11 per cent of the global total. By contrast, growth rates in some of the more mature markets such as Japan and South Korea will rise by less than two per cent each year.

The immaculate growth of the internet users in India marks a great potential of the growth online networking. Indians have been upbeat in accepting new technology and have great networking skills and these skills are sure to get a boost with the growth in IT and ITES infrastructure in India

In an assessment of advertising placed on social networking sites, I was surprised to find that nearly 20% of all ad spending is by local businesses. In general, there is an assumption going into this research was that commercials on social networks were almost purely national but a recent research proved it wrong where local small businesses are heavy advertisers on the social networks. According to an estimate, local advertisers account for about $641 million of nearly $3.3 billion this year trying to reach consumers via social networking sites.

In the scheme of things, it’s still a drop in the bucket. The total is less than 3% of all locally spent online advertising. In an estimate for individual local markets, it would equate to a few hundred thousand dollars or less in most markets.  But it is expected that there is a growing trend among small buisnesses to spend more on social networks over other internet marketing options and the much expensive traditional media like print and television.

The growth in small buisness advertsment on social network is due to its cost effectiveness and larger reach to the select target group ie younger audience, as this target group tends to spend more than any other TG. ZaaBiz encourages all its members who run small to medium size buisnesses to advertise on our buisness networking platform as it is cost-effective and has good reach.

Access to affordable high-speed Internet and mobile phone service are key to economic growth and job creation in developing countries according to a latest report by the World Bank. The report, Information and Communications for Development 2009, found that for every 10 percentage-point increase in high-speed Internet connections there is an increase in economic growth of 1.3 percentage points. Internet users in developing countries increased tenfold from 2000 to 2007 and there are now over four billion mobile phone subscribers in developing countries. These technologies offer tremendous opportunities.

The report identified the mobile platform as the most powerful way to reach and deliver public and private services to hundreds of millions of people in remote and rural areas across the developing world. Broadband provides the basis for local information technology services industries which create youth employment, increase productivity and exports, and promote social inclusion.

In the advent of the report being true, it would be great for India as the growth of telecom industry has been phenomenal in the past decade. The growth is still set to explode due to the huge potential in the rural areas of India. The same is the case with the broadband access, internet broadband service being mostly used in the corporate sector, there is huge untapped potential when it comes to exploring broadband service options for individual households. As theses two industries will grow and so will the Indian economy. For more such interesting articles and discussions join ZaaBiz Business Groups.

The demand for high quality trucks with a higher price is increasing in India. Looking at this need Tata Motors has introduced a whole new range of tucks called “World Truck”. The new product is the result of collaboration with its South Korean subsidy Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company and the European Technical Centre.

“World Truck” will be sold in India as well as international markets wherein it is likely to compete heavily with products of Volvo and Mercedes. The world series trucks is an attempt to create a niche in the Indian market which is being dominated largely by low end products by Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland.To mark the international presence the trucks will be sold in India and South Korea. Alternatively it will be exported to markets like South Africa, Middle East and South Asia by end of March next year.

For more such business information and articles visit ZaaBiz Groups.

The key driver for BPO in telecom is demand for customer care services. The major reason for the growing importance of the quality customer care services is that it is the only differentiator and more so technology is uniformly accessible to all providers.

BPO for telecom is also a huge job creator, employing over 1,22,440 people in BPO firms in 2008  a number that is set to more than double to 2,94,444 in 2012. After telecom, banking is the biggest employment generator for domestic BPO firms. The primary reason for the growth of the sector is due to telecom companies like Bharti Airtel, which played a pioneering role by outsourcing many of its non-core functions in 2005, changed the way Indian firms have traditionally run business and putting pressure on others to follow suit. Telecom revenues made up 50% of the domestic BPO revenues at $661 million in 2008.

The job opportunities in BPO industry are rising and to tap these opportunities use the power of networking. Sign up for ZaaBiz and use the platform to connect with our members and find the right job.

Getting admission into IIT’s not an easy job. The competition is fierce as the number of candidates appearing multiply while the seats remain the same. This year’s IIT joint entrance exam was no different. A total of 384977 candidates appeared in JEE-2009 which was conducted by seven of the IITs on April 12, 2009. Out of them 10035 candidates have been declared qualified to seek admission for 8295 seats in the IITs at Bhubaneswar, Bombay, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Madras, Mandi (H.P.), Patna, Punjab, Rajasthan and Roorkee, IT-BHU Varanasi and ISMU Dhanbad. The number of candidates who appeared in JEE-2009 is nearly 24% more than that in the previous year.

The maximum number of students making it to the IITs this year is from the Bombay zone, with the Maximum City also contributing two among the top ten rankers. But all-India topper Nitin Jain, from Haryana’s Faridabad, gave Delhi zone the icing as the IIT-JEE results were announced on Monday. The all-India success rate has fallen to 2.6% this year from 2.8% in 2008.

We at ZaaBiz congratulate all the candidates who have managed to clear one of the toughest and the most competitive exam with flying colours.