It's known by many names and it's most of the rage! I'm discussing social networking - also known as social networking marketing, social networking optimisation, SMO, SMM and social networking. For businesses it's tremendous potential and value, however in simple terms social networking is simply another communication channel with the world.

But instead of delivering a sales or service message via advertising or marketing, with social networking you're conversing with people in the way you would with friends, colleagues or strangers who share the same interests.

Social media was once for the young Net Generation, as Don Tapscott (Author of Grown Up Digital) calls them, nevertheless now the typical age on Facebook is 35. LinkedIn features a huge membership between 35 and 54!

As David Mercer, Head of BT Design, explained recently the older generation just can't help hijacking the Net Gens' home turf KKVSH. Or at the least words compared to that effect. Can it be fair? I can easily see his point but the actual fact most of us use phones doesn't seem to affect younger generation's perception of ownership of the mobile world.

Even my eight year old is using social networking in the form of Club Penguin (Disney's MMOG, Massively Multi-Player Online Game). By the full time he is in operation, social networking will undoubtedly be in the same way integrated in his life as email and cell phones, if they're still around.

With 400 million active accounts on Facebook getting over 120 million unique visitors each month, social networking is not going away. But it's important to consider what your objective is if you want to get a part of social networking for personal, business or branding reasons.

Different platforms have different personalities: LinkedIn is business oriented while Facebook is social and works better in engaging individuals. Twitter is real-time news and informative data on from clubs and coffee shops to finance and biochemical research. So each platform must certanly be picked to meet the characteristics of objectives.

Remember, too, that other countries have big platforms. China's platform is QQ and has over 500million users, Orkut has over 100 million users with over 70 per cent of these from Brazil and India. In Russia, Vkontakte has over 60 million, so pick your playground carefully.

All the major platforms offer advertising. Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube all have a pay per click advertising option which is often targeted at an audience with surgical precision...well, field surgery at least. Let's say I wanted to get individuals to book me to operate workshops in their business.

I could place an advert on LinkedIn targeting Marketing Directors of businesses in the UK with over 250 staff, or perhaps select several niche industries such as finance, retail and manufacturing. If I get my advert right I will simply attract clicks that will probably convert and, obviously, I only pay when they click!

A phrase of caution: We all put so much details about ourselves on social networking that with only a little research people can simply learn a great deal about you and your business. Reputation management hasn't been more important.

Using LinkedIn for instance, let's say I wish to meet Mr Smith, CMO of a blue chip brand. I look him on LinkedIn and see that he is a person in a group called Future Trends. I can also see that he is connected to a buddy of mine called Thomas. I join the group called Future Trends and ask Thomas to ask Mr Smith if he could tell me more about that group.

Do we think that hearing from Thomas that someone who shares a common interest would like to meet him would be of interest? You might hope so. There are lots of ways to handle social networking but there is a level of lateral thinking that helps.

When creating a cultural media strategy there are numerous monitoring tools that can be utilized to plan who you must engage with and where you ought to have a presence. One of my favorites is Social Radar from Infegy. It gives you an aesthetic representation on what social networking accounts are connected, a road map of who's conversing with who on the web.

Through this you can see where most conversations are happening in your topic. These people are called Influencers and they're an essential element of a cultural media strategy as they help organisations and individuals control the conversations.

Allow me to let you know a story. A well-known journalist was currently talking about a big brand's new sports vehicle on his blog. The journalist was an Influencer because over 50,000 people subscribed to read his blog on a typical basis. His opinion of the newest car's looks was centered on an image he'd seen and unfortunately for the manufacturer the opinion wasn't a great - the language "back of a bus" and "angry bulldog" come to mind.

Soon after his opinion hit the web, postings start to look on blogs and forums echoing his comments. Before long the opinion of even those individuals who have never seen the car is a negative one.

Now if the brand had been monitoring the social biosphere they would have quickly acquired this story and through sentiment monitoring [WHAT'S THIS??] they would have been able to see its negative connotation. They might h,ave seen the topic growing in importance and acted on it. How I hear you say!

Well, my first faltering step would have been to make contact with the journalist and invite him to have the car in person. Let's face it, brands are about experience not only looks. Imagine this...

You invite the journalist to become listed on you for a course day. When he arrives he is offered a bright new, highly-polished, the top of range version of the car. First impressions...it looks better than it did in the photos.