Social media to empower SMEs

India presently has around 6400 industrial clusters, of which nearly 6000 are “low tech”. Poor technology adoption remains a major cause for poor operational and marketing competitiveness in the sector.With an aim to enable Indian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to harness the power of the internet and social media, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) has joined hands with Facebook.Through this unique partnership Facebook and FICCI aim to make technology a driving factor for enhancing the global competitiveness of the Indian SME sector through this collaboration.Areas where SME’s benefit through the use of Facebook and social media include image building, recruitment and retention, business associate acquisition, research, product development and procurement.Facebook has 46 million users in India and offers a significant growth option for Indian SMEs through its unique platform for developers and tools for businesses, to helping promote growth, jobs and skills around the world.Facebook unveiled a series of ‘Facebook for Business’ tutorials, which they will run at FICCI trade shows and conferences.Participating SMEs will receive hands-on training on how they can use Facebook to create an online presence, build and maintain a Facebook Page, engage Facebook users and access customers through Facebook’s global user base of more than 800mn.Participating SME’s will also get the Small and Medium Business (SMB) boost voucher, which will give them an advertising credit for free advertising on the Facebook platform.