We are just a few hours away from the new year, and there is a sense of excitement and bon homie everywhere. As we usher into 2010, here is my take on 2009 from a social media perspective.

The year saw fantastic growth and adoption of social media across India, fueled largely by Facebook and Twitter. The growth in Twitter’s follower base can be attributed largely to a host of celebrities adopting Twitter. Though most of the celebrity Tweeters are from the Indian movie industry, the crown goes to Shashi Tharoor, minister of state for external affairs. If Twitter needed an ambassador in India, they could head straight to Shashi Tharoor; he has been tweeting incessantly and has a very enviable follower base of more than 500,000 followers. Incidentally he is one the few ministers worldwide regular on Twitter and has even earned the sobriquet “Minister Twitter”.

When it comes to other social networking websites, Linkedin is another success story in India, growing by leaps and bounds. They have also setup up a regional office in India, their first in the Asia-Pacific region.  This shouldn’t come as a surprise as India is the fastest growing market for Linkedin with a base of 3 million users or about 6% of the total worldwide.

On the other hand, Myspace has been a failure in India and hasn’t appealed much to Indians. Blame it on poor strategy or the inability to break through the existing clutter.

It’s a similar story with Orkut. In Orkut’s case, there has been an exodus of users to Facebook. Facebook is far more engaging and has far more settings for privacy control, which Orkut is trying to replicate; but it’s too little too late.

It’s also heartening that social media is finally seen as a vehicle for user engagement, and not a fad, which many companies are waking up to. Leveraging the power of social media to reach out to your potential customers and be a part of their conversations.

2009 has been a productive year for social media and looking forward to more innovations and surprises in 2010. So watch this space!