Banning employees from using social networking sites at work is not the best way of dealing with the issue, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has advised.

Sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace enjoy widespread popularity and some employers fear that they take up too much of their workforce’s time.

However, a blanket ban is not the optimum solution for dealing with the rise in social networking’s popularity, the TUC says.

"Simply cracking down on use of new Web tools like Facebook is not a sensible solution to a problem that is only going to get bigger," says TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

"It’s unreasonable for employers to try to stop their staff from having a life outside work, just because they can’t get their heads around the technology," he adds.

According to the TUC, employers would be better served by factoring a little time into each day for employees to use such sites.

In other news today, businesses were advised to spend time and money on their websites to develop their full potential.

Peter Davis of Landgate estate agents said use of such techniques as search engine optimisation can pay big dividends.