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So you're good about showing up to the Chamber of Commerce breakfast meetings, and have no problem attending the after hours mixers, but are you networking online? Think it's just for high school and college flunkies? Think again. Social networking for business purposes is taking off big time.

Perhaps you are on Facebook, but haven't considered how your being on there can enhance your business networking prowess. According to Charlene Li, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, there are two reasons why people don't find applications like Facebook relevant to their professional lives: 1) Your professional colleagues are likely not actively using Facebook; and 2) Most of the applications today aren’t designed for a business context.

She goes on to say..."Let’s take the first problem – you may not have many friends in these social networks. This was my problem – it was only this past spring that people I actually know started using Facebook. My friends are posting links, book reviews, the events they were going to, and suddenly, I now find myself at a near addiction with Facebook. I went to an event because five friends said they would be there. And when I saw them at the event, I congratulated them on closing a round of financing and asked about their recent vacation – all of which had been shared on Facebook. What’s the business value of staying on top of your network? As we know from experience, priceless."

"Now for the second problem. Business applications on services like Facebook have yet to take off, which is why people like Tom Davenport have a hard time seeing the business value of social networking sites. I don’t blame him – after all, the most popular applications on Facebook today include such frivolous things like playing Scrabble and Vampires (where you “bite” your friends – don’t ask). That’s because these applications are being designed by 20-something developers for their 20-something friends."

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