With the growing popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, companies in India are planning to spend 30-40 per cent of marketing budget, amounting to about Rs 1,200 crore, through digital media platform this fiscal, an Assocham study has found.

The study, which surveyed about 1,400 people, including directors, CEOs, CFOs and managing directors, observed that majority of start-ups, leading national and international companies operating in India are embracing the social media to expand their business.

About 75 per cent of the participants said that they have doubled their spending on social media this year.

Almost all respondents said that their dependency on traditional print media for advertisements has reduced, it said.

"Companies both large and small are turning to social media platforms as the percentage of internet users on social networking sites continues to climb," the study said.

It said that today brands cannot afford to ignore the significance of social media as a key medium to target their identified customers and connect with them.

"Companies are taking advantage of social media to advertise, launch new products, study consumer behaviour pattern and interacting directly with their customers," it said.

Majority of the respondents also said that their dependency on traditional print media for advertisements has reduced drastically.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin, Orkut, Hi5, Friendster and BigAdda are some of the popular social networks used by companies, it said.

"Low-cost coupled with higher visibility and wider reach on social media is the main reason behind this surge in number of companies cashing in on inevitable social media platform to reach young customers," the study added.

"Goods and services worth about Rs 23,000 crore are traded currently on the social networks across the world and the figure is likely to swell to about Rs 1.35 lakh crore by 2015 with India?s share likely to cross Rs 10,000 crore mark during the course of next three to four years," Assocham secretary general DS Rawat said in a statement.

The survey was carried out at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune between April and August 2011.