An IAB study of behaviour and attitudes towards social media among agencies and brands has found that Coca-Cola, Nike and Virgin are most likely to be identified as brands excelling in social media, but the space as a whole has a lot of development to undergo.

Conducted on behalf of the IAB UK by ICM Research, the study showed that 20 per cent of industry respondents cited Coke as one of three brands “doing social particularly well”. Nike took second place, with 15 per cent, and Virgin was third with 12 per cent.

The study also showed the general mistrust of social in among many agencies and brands. 28 per cent of marketers dont believe social media plays an important role in marketing, and 43 per cent of social campaigns arent integrated into the wider marketing function.

Furthermore, half of brands dont measure the ROI of social, whole 25 per cent only calculate it some of the time. Agencies were more likely to examine their social spending, but 18 per cent still never measured ROI.

“Although the use of social has become more sophisticated, it still has a lot of growing up to do in convincing a significant part of the marketing industry that it has an important and beneficial role to play,” said Alex Kozloff, director of marketing & communications for the IAB UK. “In terms of marketing disciplines, its still a teenager. However, with agencies expecting social budgets to rise 33 per cent and brands expecting a 21 per cent rise, it could enter adulthood within a couple of years.”

Social campaigns are most likely to be used to drive brand awareness, with 79 per cent of respondents citing this as a objective when using social media, followed by brand engagement and web traffic. When it comes to measuring effectiveness, engagement is the most popular metric at 55 per cent, with traffic driven and click-throughs coming in second and third respectively.