THE line between the real world and the virtual world is becoming ever fainter.

Whether we're tweeting, updating our status, sharing images, watching each other's videos or chatting, for many of us social networking is just another part of our daily lives.

But is there room for businesses in this very intimate peer-to-peer world, where we place more trust in what we hear from our friends than what we read in the media?

Up until now, we've always communicated with businesses in a very formal way, through their websites, advertising and editorial, everything has always been very polished with glossy photographs and finely crafted copy.

But this isn't the way we typically talk to each other online, so why would we want to talk to businesses that way? In fact if businesses want to be taken seriously in our online spaces, they're going to learn to communicate in an altogether different way.

Good social networking is sometimes less about talking and more about creating opportunities for others to tell their stories. Of course for business owners this will take a huge leap of faith, to give up control of copy approval and to give the spotlight to their customers, allowing them to tell their tales, warts and all.

Traditionally our relationship with businesses has been a very one-sided one, we've become used to being told what we need, how we should look, where we should eat or what kind of car we should drive.

Very rarely have companies taken the time to listen to what we the consumer have to say to them, but it’s those companies that are listening that are succeeding in social spaces. After all, listening to customers' comments rather than dismissing them as bad for business is an opportunity for businesses to build better products.

Being transparent and engaging customers before, during and after the sales process, enables companies to build much stronger relationships with customers, relationships based on trust, where customers become advocates and prosumers (professional consumers), often with more knowledge of products than the company itself and are willing to share their experiences online.

If you want to succeed you need to put more in than you take out, but if you’re adding value to what you do in the real world then you're off to a good start.

The rewards for getting it right can be fantastic – new audiences, stronger relationships, and better products allowing you to convert online activity to real world action.

:: David Coxon is the ICT manager at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art