Social networking is an evolving 21st century phenomenon - offering the chance to create relationships that span geography and time. I'm always amazed when I strike up a conversation with someone I've met online, usually through my blog, or a mutual introduction, and we are able to explore opportunities to support each other. It makes "work" and "marketing" a lot of fun!

A reader generously shared with me a list of social networking sites dedicated to facilitating conversations and resource-sharing between physicians and healthcare professionals. In turn, I want to point you to these sites, each of which seems to have a slightly different focus.

Here is the list of physician networking sites.

I've written previously about Sermo, and interviewed the founder of RelaxDoc, Dr. Myo Thant, for a podcast. And here is a recent blog post from The Health Care Blog about Sermo's rising popularity. I noticed that one of the social networking sites, that is dear to my heart and geared to women physicians, didn't make the list - it's MomMD and it is well worth a visit for the dynamic conversations on the message boards!

Why should you care about these virtual meeting places?

Do you recall what I have written previously about the value of networking? Your network is your source of leverage.

Through these social networks you may discover the following:

1. As a practicing physician, you can get clinical input for puzzling cases
2. As a younger physician or a medical student, you can seek out career mentoring
3. As an entrepreneurial physician, you can have conversations that seek to create strategic alliances, understand your target market better (especially if physicians are your target market for your medical devices, information tech applications or consulting services) or raise awareness about your services and products.
   
   Just a word of caution - most of these sites do NOT welcome active solicitation. Instead, find ways to be of service and to generate value - offer advice, point to resources, volunteer to send articles etc.

Of course there are other social networks that are equally valuable for developing good business relationships. Just this morning, I was put in touch through LinkedIn with someone who serves my same market and is interested in talking. Who knows where that introduction might lead?

What is your experience with social networks? Which ones have worked best for you?