The subject of this research is the emergence of business or corporate social networks, and their impact on modern business. Particular emphasis is placed on their characteristics and the way employees use them to be more productive. The purpose of this research is to lay the theoretical basics of business social networks, and to identify the most widespread and how they affect modern management. One of the goals of this research is to determine when and how social networks have emerged and which are the most popular public social networks. However, the most important goal of this research is to determine what business social networks are and what their characteristics are. It is also important to identify which companies are using the business social networks and how they affect the business. Secondary sources of data, i.e. scientific and professional articles and books, and internet sources were used in the research. For the definition of the results of the research methods of analysis and synthesis, comparative methods and inductive-deductive methods were used. Based on the conducted research it can be concluded that business and public social networks have a significant impact on business and management of the 21st century and that the way employees and managers interact with one another have changed.