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There has been a lot in the news lately about social networking and the popularity of social sites online, such as Facebook and MySpace, Ning, Twitter, and more. How is a small business owner, overwhelmed with the various hats they are required to wear supposed to know which site is best for their business, or even if it’s necessary to even be on a social site? The choices facing small business owners can almost seem overwhelming, and different networks pop up almost on a monthly basis. It’s easy to get lost in the crowd, or worse, to lose control of how you’re presented in this new social media. Plus should employees be allowed to broadcast their affiliation with your company to their social network?

The very first thing to do is relax. Social networking is a lot like networking at an after hours business function. It can be more, but until you develop a plan, just visit with people and find out about them. A social network can be a great place to develop business connections, but it can also be used to create a forum for your customers to comment on your business, on your service and be used to promote other buying opportunities. Managing your social network doesn’t have to be a chore, but it is one more duty that should be taken very seriously.

Take Facebook for example. What started as a way for college students to interact with each other in an online environment has evolved into a forum where you can reunite with high school buddies, discover like minded individuals who read what you read, watch the shows you watch, shop where you shop and listen to the same kind of music. Think of it as a way of finding peers in your niche group. Now how can you apply that to your business? Easy, just find people interested in your product, and then educate them on it. Don’t sell. Never sell. But there are ways to educate your audience to predispose them to thinking about you the next time they want to buy a product like yours.

Social networking is a great way to find evangelists for your product. These are customers who go out and “preach” about the virtues of what you offer. They don’t do it for pay, they do it out of love for the product. It’s your job to give them something remarkable to talk about, even down to their experience on your social site. Allowing customers to connect to each other and exchange stories about your business may seem scary, but they are doing it already. By giving them a place to do it online, you can stay tapped into the conversation, perhaps even participate in the conversation, and if necessary, solve problems. There are dozens of applications for social networking you can use every day, including Twitter. Twitter is the latest “what are you doing?” feed that keeps you in the loop on what your friends or network is doing. You can twitter coupons, twitter specials, and even more via that particular social network. Just remember not to abuse the privilege of communicating with your customers.

Social networking is tough. It can be a landmine of etiquette and what’s right or wrong, plus how the interaction will work for your business may be different from your business neighbor. A smart business owner will use the services of a professional online marketing company experienced in social networking and the in’s and out’s of marketing to reach the market in the best way possible. If you want to save time, money and not waste effort, then use a professional to develop your social network presence.