According to a recent Harvard Business School blog by Charlene Li, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, it does. Many don’t find social networking sites relevant to their business and/or professional career. However, as the article points out, social networking applications (as we see on Facebook) are new — just starting to be developed in the last 6 months. Charlene points out examples of business effectively communicating with customers via social networking sites: Ernst & Young answers accounting questions from college students on Facebook, and Victoria’s Secret has downloadable badges for MySpace.

Social networking sites are a good place to talk to your fan base, recruit talent, and expose yourself to new customers. Not to mention the networking opportunities within your profession and market.

Kelly Shaw, a commenter on the site, points out that Serena Software has implemented “Facebook Friday”. Shaw says “As Ms. Li points out in her article, business is personal. When I need some help from one of my co-workers in Singapore, is it more or less likely that I will get that help, that a co-worker will go the extra mile or work the extra half-hour or find the right contact if I have interacted with that colleague socially?”

Steven Di Pietro points out “At the very least these sites allow you to track business contacts who have left your client company to go elsewhere.”

But social networking sites shouldn’t completely take over, as posted Erik said “These sites should facilitate connections, but they should neither be the majority of the connections nor replace true person-to-person discussion.”

As I see it, these sites are a good addition to business on all sides - B2B, B2C, and any other relationship you can find in business.