You've heard the buzz about social networking but how important is it really? The answer is, it depends! Every online business' needs are unique, so you have to match the social networking effort to the needs of both clients, prospective customers, and business resources.

To get you started, below are a few of the more popular social networking options. I'll also provide you a list of "up and coming, but not quite there yet" options at the end.

Bulletin Boards and Forums. Bulletin Boards were pioneers of the social networking scene. A decade ago bulletin boards were the first way for individuals to communicate and exchange ideas over the internet, before the advent of the World Wide Web made interfaces more manageable for everyday individuals.

Bulletin board networks today allow users to connect through topics, called 'threads', which are grouped into relevant categories. Setup can be done own your own with an SQL database-ready hosting site and minimal, if any, programming knowledge. One of the most popular bulletin board systems is the open source phpBB. Many hosting services now offer hosted bulletin boards as well.

Chat rooms or chatting functionality. Chat rooms, although they may seem like a "teenage" concept, have quickly become an important business option as well. Today's version, however is the form of "live help" or the ability to "chat" with a support person online.

Unlike a telephone call, where you have to be distracted by the annoying "hold" music while painfully awaiting someone to assist you, with chat functionality you simply make the request for assistance with one mouse click, then continue your work in the background. When the assistant is available, your chat window will blink, or pop into the foreground.

This can be a very valuable tool for customers who don't have a lot of time to waste sitting on the phone waiting for assistance. It offers more contact options, showing your company as more available and conscientious about serving its customers.

News feeds and commenting. Allowing customers to make comments on your blog, or your article information, may not seem very beneficial, but for your customers it offers them another way of communicating, and, more importantly, it develops a level of customer-to-customer communication that will help your business! Everyone knows that the best "sales pitch" is one that comes from a friend, to another friend. By allowing customers and visitors to comment online you allow them to interact in a way that provides the information and makes them feel "involved".

Blogs and journals. Blogs are a wonderful way to offer your expertise and to entice others to pay for your products and/or services based on that expertise. Blogs are very flexible, and can be built into an existing website, or can be standalone units that act "as" your website. Continual updating of your blog keeps search engines crawling your site, and keeps visitors and customers interested.

Wikis. Wikis are fast become the new "bulletin board". These systems allow experts and novices alike to develop a community through collaborative efforts. As a business, you might start a wiki on "How to start your own business". As an expert entrepreneur, you might provide detailed instructions on how to build your first business, and other might expand on your information or in other ways, collaborate with you, creating a conversation that meets the direct needs of your business.

One of the most successful Wikis online is wikipedia.org. Wikipedia boasts a whopping 684 million visitors yearly, with more than 75,000 active contributors in more than 250 different languages. Of course you'll want to monitor the additions to your wiki; search around for the many new free wiki publication sites popping up around the Internet.

Now that you have some basic information about many of the social networking options for businesses you can begin to conduct your own research. Start with any of the search engines, and begin your search for any of the networking concepts above. You'll likely get back hundreds or thousands of results but after a while you'll begin to find those that will work well for you and your business.

If you're ready for cutting-edge business options, try some of these:

• twitter - soon becoming one of the most popular "up-to-the-minute" social network concepts ever; I just saw they have also incorporated photo posts from your mobile
• facebook, myspace, tumblr - these networking sites are making their way into business progressively, although I have seen limited results; the idea is distribute ideas and concepts to entise others to check out your products or services
• disgsby - this new social networking tool is changing all the rules when it comes to how we look at messaging software. Log into email, instant chat (including Google chat, AIM, Yahoo, MSN), and social networking sites like facebook, myspace, and twitter. The best part - a widget that you can past to your own website so visitors can instantly message you without having messenger software installed on your own computer!