Social media giant Facebook is launching a new professional network called 'Facebook at Work'.

It will look very similar to regular Facebook, but will allow you to keep your personal profile separate from your work one.

The new site means users can chat with colleagues, make professional contacts and share documents.

The plan is to rival Linkedin and Google Drive.

The Financial Times says the new site will allow users to keep their personal profile "with its holiday photos, political rants and silly videos separate from their work identity."

The project began during the past year and is now being tested with firms, the paper says.

Many companies currently ban employees from checking Facebook during office hours - but it is thought this may change.

The site had 864 million daily active users on average for September 2014, with 703 million mobile daily active users.

Facebook says some 82% of its daily active users are outside the US and Canada. It has also recently announced plans to expand its Dublin operations.

Newstalk's business editor Ian Guider outlines the plans for the new site.