Businesses ignoring social networking potential?

But doesn't mean employees can throw sheep all day…

Businesses need to be more aware of the potential benefits and risks of social networking, according to analysts.

Gartner found that social networking websites, instant messaging email, chat and file sharing are attracting significant levels of interest online.

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Out of 4,000 PC and mobile phone users across 18 countries Gartner found that 38 per cent connected to social networks using PCs and less than one per cent using a mobile phone.

Users of social networking sites are mainly motivated by consumer demand and entertainment rather than business objectives, according to Gartner.

But it says the importance of social networking sites will become increasingly important to a company's competitiveness in the future.

Nick Ingelbrecht, research director at Gartner said in a statement: "Social networking software holds enormous potential for improving the management of large companies.

"However, work in this area is still immature and in the meantime companies should be aware of what is happening in the world of consumer social networking and implement appropriate usage policies for employees' use of services such as Facebook and MySpace on company time."