For most there is a clear distinction between social sites such as Facebook and the business alternatives. However, some still have reservations about many of these sites in terms of business benefits and believe that they have a social bias, putting former colleagues in touch with one another or helping people improve their career prospects.

But there's no doubt that in the current climate many of these networking sites will look again at their key objectives and focus much more on promoting businesses ahead of individuals. For sole traders and small companies the opportunity to meet new customers and gain more competitive quotes from a wider supplier base is absolutely critical - and that's where online business networking comes in.

Many business owners generate sales through word of mouth and believe there is nothing better than face-to-face meetings. But realistically few of us have the time to do this and therefore have increasingly started to use online networking as a substitute. It still gives you the chance to present your business, meet lots of other business people and build relationships.

In many ways it is the relationship building issue that people still question - can you really develop trusted business relationships over the internet? I believe you can. Most of us already do a substantial portion of our business development work via email and other internet technologies and therefore these online business communities simply take it to the next level.

Also, opportunities to meet the decision makers within your target market are probably fairly limited, but online this isn't a problem and you can be highly focused in your interaction - not least because there are niche communities for just about everything you could imagine. You can search for and locate people in a particular industry, role or company, which is impossible to do in face-to-face and even one-on-one email and telephone interactions.

Also, online networking does give you an increased reach. In person, or via email, there is a practical limit to how many people you can connect with. But in an online community you can get your message out to a much wider audience.

One of the challenges for many is that they have to sign up to a range of sites to enjoy maximum benefits because most are either for business networking or alternatively aimed at tendering, such as Supply2Gov. And on the tender front not all sites cover both the private and public sectors. The British Chambers of Commerce research highlighted the fact that people wanted a site that covered both categories (networking and tendering), which was the impetus behind our desire to build the first combined site. We're obviously excited about the launch of the Business Network Online (BNO), which we feel will provide a safe platform for people to buy and sell their products and services from as well as develop new contacts.

Business networking online is here to stay - those that embrace it fully will benefit in terms of building their company's profile and driving sales. Ultimately it allows you to reach more people with less effort, to identify and connect with the right people more quickly and to reduce travel time and expense. It really does make sense to consider online networking - research the sites, read the various blogs, talk to companies that already use an online network and then sign up to the site that you feel will work best for you.

For more information visit www.britishchambers.org.uk [1]