Social networking is playing an ever increasing role in business and having a presence on the main sites can be as important as putting your address in the phone book was 20 years ago.

As a free shop window for products and services, social networking sites are a resource that you ignore at your peril but there are things to be aware of, not least being the fact that whatever you post has the potential to be viewed by every single person in the world. Fantastic ... or is it?

It’s a bit like the photograph of you, a little worse for wear, taken at that hilarious moment when you fell into a plant and posted by your best friend on Facebook. Brilliant! Right up to the moment that your Grans daycentre decided to have an ‘Introduction to the Internet’ day. You’ve got to love an efficient search engine.

So try and remember that whilst your customers might be earnestly searching for your latest product they probably don’t want to see a picture of your impression of a Baboon.